Windows xp won’t start

I’m trying to fix a friends old compaq. Has XP but no longer has the cd
After Compaq screen I get
We apologize for the inconvenience but Windows did not start successfully….
If I Select: Start Windows Normally I get a loop back to the same screen.
If I select anything else, Safe Mode etc I get a whole screen of
multi (0) disk (0) rdisk (0) partition(1) \WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS ………….
multi (0) disk (0) rdisk (0) partition(1) \WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS ………….
multi (0) disk (0) rdisk (0) partition(1) \WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS ………….

Then a split second blue screen then back to the loop.