Hard drives park their r/w heads in a "landing zone" portion of the disk(s) when powered off. The fact that the computer seemingly reads a few files is a good thing, meaning like Miracle Max in "Princess Bride" . . . it might be "mostly dead" but not completely dead.

I would suggest accessing the computer's BIOS menu on boot up and changing the order of the boot devices so that the computer seeks either a floppy or CD before the HD. There are tons of instructions on how to make a bootable CD on the web, including downloadable OS boot files. If the computer does boot, then you might be able to access the HD's file directory and see if it's still alive.