Acer Aspire One boots to black

I just received my Acer Aspire One in the mail today. When I power it on, it goes through the boot sequence and then shows a black screen with a mouse, but nothing else. I have tried typing on this screen, ctrl+alt+delete, plus using the mouse etc. but nothing happens.

I'm attempting the procedure on this page: http://macles.blogspot.com/2008/12/a...overy-dvd.html

however, I'm a little confused. The guy doesn't give you step by step instructions, just general hints and I feel like you have to be an IT person to get what he's talking about.

In any case, I got to downloading the AAO_v1-0-15E.iso file, but when I burned a DVD, it was just a copy of the directory structure that you find within the ISO file, and doesn't do anything on auto-load, and then I'm not sure what files I'm supposed to access on the Aspire One. I'm not sure how to get the iso's installation file onto the USB stick so I can install it on the Aspire One. Any help with giving me the exact steps I should follow would be greatly appreciated.

 

I just attempted this:

http://macles.blogspot.com/2008/12/acer ... ackup.html

The installation seemed to go smoothly, until it got to the end and the following messages appeared:

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Looking for image to restore.

No image found.

Image restored.

Press any key to reboot.

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When I rebooted, the same black screen with a mouse on it appeared. Why is this happening?

 

Or, failing this, is there a way to just wipe the computer completely and do my own fresh install of some OS? Or does it have to be the recovered OS due to the screen's weird proportions?