Hard Disk Controller Failure

My friend has an old 1992 DELL 386 333P. When he boots up, he gets an error message that says that his hard disk controller has failed. And he is prompted to click on F1 (continue) or F2 (set-up). There is no information in set-up on how to fix the problem. There is no help file and he, of course, cannot access the C drive.
Can someone explain or walk us through on how to fix this problem since he still likes his old DELL?