Noob with windows 7 boot issue

Hello everybody

My wifes computer is a dell inspiron 1545 laptop running windows 7 about a week ago it started acting up when you powerup the computer it automatically come up with a windows error recovery screen I have tried both options to start window but it comes back to this recovery screen. also I have tried starting it in safe mode and it comes right back to the recovery screen. almost like there is no boot file. Is there any fix to this without doing a factory restore my wife has files and photos on there she would like to get off she is very upset about this!! Any ifo would be greatly appreciated

thank you,

Devlyn

I have many customers come in with a similar situation.  Unfortunately, they have failed to backup any pics or files they want to save to an external source, and if the hard drive is physcially failing, there is little that can be done about it.  If the disks in the hard drive are not damaged it can be sent off to special companies that can disassemble the hard drive and recover the data off the disks...but this is very expensive.
If the laptop will let you get to a recovery or repair screen, try doing a system restore to a prior point before the most recent Win7 updates.  This will not delete any pics. (This is NOT a factory restore which does deletes everything.)  If this doesn't work, try repairing or rebuilding the boot record.  This can only be done if you can get to the command prompt screen (black, DOS type screen where you enter commands.)
If you can get to the command prompt screen type C: then hit enter.
then after the C: type bootrec.exe /FixMBR  then enter.
Now, do the same thing except use bootrec.exe /fixboot  then enter.
Reboot.
Now, if there is physical damage to the hard drive this will not work, but give it a shot.

Oh, I might add that if this does work it usually indicates a hard drive that is on the verge of failing anyway. If it works, backup any files you want to save to an external source, and make plans for hard drive failure. If the HD does fail, putting in a new hard drive isn't that hard, and you can likely get restore disks from Dell to reinstall Windows.

Most new computer have a recovery partition. I think you can boot to the Dell recovery partition by pressing F12 or F2 as the machine boots. This might give you a set of options to either browse the file system from the command line or install Windows on top of itself which would preserve your wife's photos.