Incredibly slow after improper shutdown

[HALTAH]

My girlfriends Macbook Pro battery was drained completely. Upon awakening from charging a little, the screen displayed the last webpage she visited only it was in black and white until she pressed the spacebar making it color again. She closed that window and tried to restart, it seemed frozen so she held the power button down. Power up thereafter was painfully slow, several minutes on Apple logo w/spinning wheel then several more minutes on wallpaper and even longer loading dock along with desktop items. I'd say it takes 15-20 minutes from power button to completed desktop. All other programs run very slow also. All I've done was remove battery and hold power button to no avail. Any insight into our dilemna will be greatly appreciated!

 

[Vulcan]

Were you downloading updates, installing programs, or anything like that when the machine powered down?

 

[HALTAH]

No, but she installed all the necessary updates the evening before successfully. The only odd thing that happened was her being online with only battery power, then her falling asleep causing it to fully drain.

 

[ntrigue]

When this occurs you typically see the last screen you were viewing with a gray overlay and a small progress bar. Even when color is restored I found that the mouse and keyboard are unresponsive. I hold the power button until shutdown and the startup does take much longer but then no more problems.

I would recommend Repairing Permissions. Go to Utilities Folder then Disk Utility.app and go from there...

 

[HALTAH]

Ok so Disk Utililties stated a serious problem on HD. I wasn't around to read exactly what caused it, so I wll try and post when I find out. The MBP is going to be fixed in the morning at the Apple Store. Thanks for the help.