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Helpful answers
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Sep 8, 2012 6:35 PM in response to XBREAKTHRUPHOTOXby Ronda Wilson,★HelpfulHi, and welcome to Apple Support Communities.
Have you tried starting up in Safe Mode?
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1455
If this works you will see the normal desktop Once completely started up in Safe Mode, try to restart normally and go to Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility. Click on the top hard drive icon in the left sidebar and note the S.M.A.R.T. status at the bottom right of the pane. What does it say?
Select the named boot volume in the left sidebar, ("Macintosh HD" unless it has been renamed). What is the hard drive capacity and how much space remains available on it? Repair permissions on it.
See if you are able to do a little hard drive maintenance to help things out.
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Sep 9, 2012 9:11 AM in response to Ronda Wilsonby XBREAKTHRUPHOTOX,Ok so i tried going in safe mode but i never knew when to press the shift key because i never heard a chime. So i reset my ram [comand-alt-p-r] . now i hear the chim. But the shift key doestnt do any thing , it still just has a apple logo and a gear spinning. i do hear the fans and harddrive. Any other sugestions ?
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Sep 9, 2012 11:59 AM in response to XBREAKTHRUPHOTOXby Ronda Wilson,It takes a very long time to start up in Safe Mode because it does a check and repair of the hard drive.
Push down the shift key as the startup chime is ending, and hold it down until you see the spinning gear. Then let up on it. Let the gear spin for a very long time (half an hour, maybe), and see if anything else happens. You should see your regular Desktop when it finally loads.
Since you mentioned resetting the PRAM, you could also try resetting the PMU:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1431?viewlocale=en_US
Without the Install disc or a third-party's utility disc, this is about all you can do.
Edit: Oh, now that I think of it, you could try using fsck: