Desktop Computer Packages - my compaq computer desktop says disk read error?what can i do to fix it?

my compaq computer desktop says disk read error?what can i do to fix it?

my compaq desktop says disk read error,i was playing a game last week and it cut off an will not boot to windows.PLEASE HELP ME(not shouting)

Disk read error = dead hard disk. Replace the hard disk.
It is not dead if it spins up. Get a XP installation CD, boot from it and do a repair. CHKDSK /R Depending on the hard drive size, may take about 45 minutes to run.
Well you will need to format your computer if that doesn't work then you need to replace it.
Its either a dead hard drive as already mentioned or a corrupted boot sector. If its the latter, you can try using the o/s disk and with its tools recover or re-write a new boot sector to see if that works. If it doesn't, then its probably a dead drive and only replacing it will solve any problems again. On installing the new drive, set the pin on the new drive as a Master drive, and the pin on the old one as a slave drive. This way if the drive can still be accessed, you can recover files from that old drives. Sometimes even re-writing a new boot sector will not fix anything but reformatting and doing a full re-install will. In that case, it means anything and everything saved onto that drive is now lost. Always have a backup source for important files and programs like external hard drives, burning to blu-ray, dvd, or cd roms, or even online storage systems like MediaFire, MegaUpload. I use Mediafire as an online backup for important files, they are free, unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth (no wait times to download). I currently have over 700Gb saved with them and its all free.