I might be buying an old laptop from a friend for really cheap, he says it doesn't work

When I turn it on, I see the Compaq logo, then it says "Error 1782 Disk Controller Failure"

I have no idea how to fix this...Theres no prompt to access the BIOS or anything

Does anyone know whats wrong here? Because if I buy it for cheap and get it working then it will be a good deal