KSOD on vista; safe mode AND reinstall

My Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop has completely given up on me.

I'm running Windows Vista 32bit with SP1 and upon doing an automatic update from Windows on reinstall it decided to throw the window "Windows recovery error. Windows has failed to start. This could be due to a software or hardware upgrade." Or something to those lines.. on trying to boot into safe mode I get the KSOD, on all of the options. I also tried to run the system repair but that gives a KSOD and so does running the reinstallion disc. So I don't think I have any options left. Any advice for someone who's really downhearted about the whole thing?