Hey everyone, it's been years since I last posted here...

I have no idea what my younger brother was doing on my old computer before it went haywire but now it won't boot and all that reads is "A disk read error occurred, Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart."

It's Windows XP, and I don't have an install disc.

I don't use it anymore but I never bothered to transfer all my old important files onto my new computer so I'm really hoping the data is recoverable. Or better yet, that the hard drive can still function normally.

Any advice or direction is appreciated, thanks.Lets hope that he just CHANGED the BIOS settings.I can access BIOS at startup but it's like a foreign language to me 

Is there anything in particular I should be looking for?First, make sure there are no other discs inserted (floppy disc, usb or cd). Second, you need to ask your brother what he did.He claims he did nothing but there's no use negotiating with an 8y/o. My sister claims she saw him TOYING around with the cables behind the computer but nothing seemed out of place.

Details I forgot to mention:
He called me saying the computer was ACTING erratically so I expected the typical blue screen of death. Instead, the screen was gray and said the computer hadn't booted properly on the previous startup and to choose a startup option. I selected "last working setting" or something along the lines of that and it rebooted back to the same menu. I then chose "safe MODE" and it rebooted to the menu I'm seeing now which only reads "Disk read error occurred."Open the computer and check all cable connections.