Probably this error is displayed if you got a bad hard drive. Try to replace it and see if that takes care of the problem. Other possibilities are a bad system board.
You can try to detect the Hard Disk in the BIOS setup. Each motherboard have its own option to go in to BIOS setup.
If you feel that the disc was OK. You can try various iterations of booting up from disc, chkdsk, fixboot and so on and finally it will go through thru to Safe Mode.
You must use XP Installation discs.
