Black screen with cursor

Hi,
so i have been reading forums after forums working on a friends laptop having the black screen with just the cursor, now i have tried everything i have read from ctrl+alt+del and nothing i have tried the shift button 5 times still nothing.. i also have done and tried all these in safe mode and still nothing.. i also have tried a windows 7 disc and vista disc ( only cause she didn't know what her bf's brother put on) and still wont boot to the setup up screen so i can do a repair on it... like i said i have read forum after forum on all sorts of things to try to get the processes started or even booting it and still no luck she has a lot of stuff on it that she wants to save so if anyone else has any other way for me to get this fixed without having to make it a slave drive to get things off and format it then i would really appreciate it thanks




p.s. I think i am knowledgeable about computers been working on them for the last 17 years... but i am still learning i don't know everything so any help would be appreciated