A disc read error occured press CTL ALT DLT

[puter-illiterate]

Hello all,
My brother-in-law has a problem with his laptop and it wont allow him to do anything?

Make: Toshiba Tecra ( an old one)
Running:windows XP

When you turn on , there is a black screen, top left hand corner reads:
"A disc read error occured "
press ctrl, alt, dlt to restart.

However when you do this , it just takes you back to the same message?

Any ideas please monkeys

All help appreciated, even if its just to get him started and then we can get him on here and clear the rubbish of his puter

cheers all