Vista Will Not Boot! Plz Help!

My primary laptop running vista crashed and states corrupted file. I do not have a backup CD with my pictures and word docs. I called Dell, who suggested to do a system recovery but in doing so I would lose all my files. They said they had someone who could pull the files for $$$. I am a novice user so I figured I could try to find a way to do this via internet. Microsoft said to restart, f8, and go into safe mode...this option does not come up, only "start windows normally (just sends me to an error message)" and "fix startup error (same error message)". So next it says if you can't boot in safe mode, power down, insert OS disk and press key when prompted, and use windows recovery environment to get to system restore... I put the disk in, turn the computer on and it will not boot from the disk, just sends me to the earlier referenced screen ("start windows normally" ). Is there a way to get to system restore so I can just resore to my last system restore point or am I going to have to wipe everything back to factory settings? Sorry for the long read... Pleas help!!