disk read error in xp home

My brother just called and his computer will not start up.It gets to the first splash screen (dell) and than gives a message of disk read error, press ctr, alt del .Once he does this he is on a page that just has the information of computer type etc.What is the best option for him.
I tried to get him started with the disk but it wont read it on start up.Also f8 is no use as it is not getting to the load screen for XP.Any suggestions are appreciated as I am going over in the am to try and help get it running.
KennJ

if your going over, id try the f8 and just see if it might let you into safe mode, if not, sounds like a repair install of xp to me. hate to jump to that conclusion this quickly, but if you cant get past the boot screen.... to do a repair install, get into bios and set it up to boot to cdrom, reboot, you may get a black dos looking screen that gives you some choices or says something like to boot from cdrom strike any key. have your dell xp oem in the drive, it will go thru some config stuff and eventually come up with a blue install screen ( i have a dell so im telling you what my screens say, yours may differ) there is no repair install option on the first screen, select install, it will run thru some more config stuff at the next blue screen it will say xp has been detected or something like that do you want to install in another partition blah blah.. or repair the existing select (R) hit R and the repair install will begin. you should no loose any programs or files except sp1 (unless his dell oem has sp1 on it already) any and all hotfixes critical or not and any non qualified drivers that he may be running. but, his machine is of no use if it dont boot so that should not be a concern:D hope this helps in some small way.

How do you access the Bios with dell computers?

mine is F2

As it turns out the disk was shot and would only get to about 29% repaired with scandisk /r before crapping out so I put an old 4 gig hd I had sitting around in and reloaded xp temporarily as I would like to check the MoBo before installing a new drive to see if it is bad .The reason I am thinking this is that this is the second Maxor 40 gig HD to fry in this computer in a bit over a year and they both went in the same fashon.
What is the best way to go about testing the system to see if there is a proble other than just bad luck with hard drives ? I remember seeing some software for checking the system for problems with the motherboard and other components but can not remember where or what it was.Ideas or suggestions(links) would be a great help.Thanks
KennJ