Have had CPU Windows memory crash on laptop.

[Xylem]

My laptops crashed and i cant get onto it because windows has a corrupt file due to memory or something.

Dell didn supply a recovery cd so ive been told i need to pay a good 200$ for data recovery...

Have i been ripped off...
Whats going on with the laptop...
Will my data come back..

Please help im a computer noobie and am scared of losing my data, and getting ripped off..