My macbook won't go into recovery or safe reboot

Hi Andre,

You can image a fresh copy of Recovery Mode onto a USB flash drive by downloading a macOS installer onto your Mac. Details for creating the bootable installer can be found here: How to create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support.A bonus about using a bootable installer is that unlike typical Recovery Mode, it contains a copy of macOS onboard, eliminating download time for macOS installations.

To boot your bootable installer (and enter Recovery Mode), connect it to your Mac, then hold down the Option key while you turn on or restart your Mac. Release the key when you see a selection of startup disks appear. Use the arrow keys or your mouse to select Install macOS High Sierra, then hit Enter (Return) or click the up arrow. Doing this will not change your default startup disk, unless you hold down the Control key while you hit Enter.

2010 MacBook Pro is too old to have Internet Recovery in its ROM. So you are limited to the Recovery HD partition on your drive(s). There is likely another Recovery HD on your Time Machine Backup drive (after 10.7.3).

If your Recovery HD partition gets damaged, then it could stop working properly.

Encryptor5000 makes a good suggestion. A USB-stick Installer (which includes Utilities) should work fine.

Try a SafeBoot https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262

hold the shift key on boot up.