Notebook doesn't start

Help. My dad’s Sony Vaio suddenly busted or something!

Now when switched on, it shows the Sony logo for a couple of seconds, then a blinking underscore (_), then it restarts and shows the Sony logo again, and keeps repeating the process.

any ideas how I could fix this? i doubt the cds given will work, because it doesn’t even get to booting. also, I need to salvage the files inside :frowning: