I've tried to reboot my daughters laptop. It is vista. I held down f8 and tried several of the repairs but nothing has made it work. I tried starting it in safe mode but it just stops. Is there anything else to do that will save the files?

The only way to retrieve your data is to remove the hard drive from the laptop and connect it to a USB hard drive adapter and connect it to a working computer's USB port. This computer will see this laptop drive as an external drive, you can then save/back up the files you need.

The next step is to return the hard disk to the laptop and try to repair the laptop by inserting the Vista CD in the laptop, boot up the laptop with the CD as the first boot device and do a system repair.
If you don't succeed then you will need to reinstall Vista.

If you are not sure of these instructions, get a knowledgeable friend to help.

It pays to back up your data as, the hard disk can fail and in this case it is near impossible to retrieve your data and if you need your data, it it will cost an arm and a leg to do so.

You should download UBCD4Win and try booting from the UBCD4Win CD/DVDto recover your files. Since you said you've tried booting into Safe Mode but it didn't work, from my experience, most probably the OS is corrupted. Try using UBCD4Win to recover your files to a USB drive first and then reformat the hard drive and reinstall Vista. Hope that works for you. Good luck