Systems Repair loop, Netbook, Windows 7 Starter

I am a novice when it comes to errors and sytem repair so I decided to seek help here for my specific situation. I have a Gateway netbook, bought last year, that is running Window 7 Starter, as was default when purchused. Here's my problem:

Last night while coming out of hibernation my netbook flashed a blue screen and a countdown (too fast to read, has happened before to no issue) which led to the netbook restarting into System Repair mode. I clicked the system repair and it ran and said everything was fine and restarted. It continued restart back to System Repair mode. I tried restoring from a restore point and at first it said it was successful and then restarted back to System Repair. I shut my netbook down for the night, as it was getting late, and started it back up this morning, trying all the same things. Too scared to try anything else. I have never made a back up, I kept waiting for back-up drives to go on sale or for the price to fall. I guess that was a mistake. Anyway, after consulting with forums here and other places online, I have tried the following: F8 into safe mode (restarts into System Repair mode). Now when I try system repair or restore points is says it's unsuccessful. The last system repair attempt yeilded the following message in the diagnosis section:

(everything else was successful except the following)

Root cause found
------------------
Boot critical file d:/windows/system 32/kdcom.dll is corupt.

Repair action: file repair
Result: failed. Error code = 0x490
Time taken = 873418ms


Root cause found
------------------
A reent driver installation or upgrade may be preventing the system from starting.

Repair action: System Restore
Result: failed. Error code = 0x1F
Time taken = 712379ms

I am very cautious about trying anything as I stated, my files are not backed up. What I'd like to do first, before anything else, is to back up or copy my files from my netbook, either onto a external HD or to my laptop as they are very important. After that, I will be much more comfortable perfoming any fix on my computer. Thank you, I hope someone can help.

-Sarah

Thank you very much for your help. The external harddrive I have is one that I've had for quite a while. I already transfered all the files from that to a new 1TB external harddrive, that I got recently, so I could use it. It's an older one and there's not a whole lot of space on it, that's why I thought it would be more practical to use. I think I have a USB thumb drive, if you really think that would be better. You're the computer person, I'll leave the judgement up to you.

I will create the Peppermint some time today, but I will have to put off the back up attempts until at least Friday 'cause I have two days of baking and then I'll be away from home on Thursday for Thanksgiving.

Thank you so much fo your continued help and I hope to talk to you again on Friday. :)

Forgot to add that I'm in America, that's why we'll be celebrating Thanksgiving. I just noticed yesterday that your icon says you're in Australia. So when I said Friday, that would be Saturday where you are, right? Just wanted to make sure we are on the same page.

I have formatted my external harddrive with the Peppermint system and await further instruction as how to boot my netbook. Thank you.

I will try that tomorrow and let you know if I was sucessful or if I need any more help. Thank you so much. I'm so glad there are people and forums that are able to help people like me. :)