Old computer problem

[Brickarms]

I have just gotten my Aunt's old PC and I hooked it up with a monitor and keyboard (no mouse yet)
The first time it was booted up it worked fine. The second time though, showed me the old Dell screen, went to black, then it said "Disk read error, press CTRL-ALT-DEL to restart"
After pressing the combination of keys, it just kept looping into that message. I am not a computer expert so please give me a simplified version of how to fix it.

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[KoopaScooper]

is the drive recognized by the BIOS? (push F2 and select "IDE Configuration" or something like that)
is there a floppy disk in the computer? or a bootable CD/DVD with unbootable media on it?

[Brickarms]

is the drive recognized by the BIOS? (push F2 and select "IDE Configuration" or something like that)
is there a floppy disk in the computer? or a bootable CD/DVD with unbootable media on it?

No disks of any kind are in it. (update) Primary and secondary master IDEs are there, but no slave IDEs.

[KoopaScooper]

Is there a hard disk with a stated capacity when you push enter when it's selected?

[Brickarms]

Is there a hard disk with a stated capacity when you push enter when it's selected?

what do i select

[Brickarms]

Is there a hard disk with a stated capacity when you push enter when it's selected?

oh wait, yeah my hard drive is called a maxtor and its got 40 gb apparently

[aludane]

Check the partition on the hard drive with GParted (software)?

[Brickarms]

Check the partition on the hard drive with GParted (software)?

but i can't even get to windows

[aludane]

but i can't even get to windows

Oops I didn't mean GParted, that's not standalone.

Something like SystemRescueCD

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SystemRescueCD

This includes numerous tools for checking partitions and is live-bootable.

http://www.sysresccd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage

[Brickarms]

forget it, im just going to take it to a repair shop