Dell, Insiprion 1720, Vista, cannot boot

Hello,

Have a Dell Inspirion 1720 Vista O/S that has crashed. No recovery disks to work from
I have tried the F8 option as I boot up but nothing happens. I get as far as the DELL splash screen then a black screen with a cursor.

I have gone thru some self tests and have found errors on the SATA S/N = 48BSTLTJT
I was thinking of a set of recovery disks but with the errors I worry it will be a waste of money if it is not going to work.

I can get to the normal boot screen, Bios screen and whatnot but have been unable to navigate to the Advanced boot using the F8 key as Dell Instructs.

Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated to navigate me to the recovery partition.