In case anyone ever reads this thread again... I finally got my hands on the computer and this is what I found:
1) It wasn't booting to the command line
2) GDM was starting but once he tried to log in, a xterm session started rather than the regular desktop
3) "Somehow" the GDM option to boot to a console session had been selected
4) I selected Ubuntu desktop
Sorry for wasting everyone's time
