My laptop won't start vista anymore. It will load vista until the end before freezing up and I'd have to manually shut it off. I then reboot it and the two options I get is either windows error recovery where I have the option of launching the startup repair which does not fix the problem or I can start windows normally which will again cause the laptop to freeze before vista starts up. I don't have an option for safe mode and hitting F8 repeatedly also won't give me the option of safe mode.

My laptop was a refurb unit (though it's probably new) and it does not have the windows vista DVD.

edit: I was able to start up safe mode by restarting properly during the error recovery, but safe mode will immediately exit and startup repair will take it's place. Any other ways of fixing before I do a clean wipe?

I'm glad you were able to get into safe mode. Try going into a system restore in safe mode.