Major meltdown- help!

[xamberlymx]

So the other day I tried to open Photoshop, and it kept freezing when it was loading some part of it, and then eventually would give me an error that part of the preferences for the program had been deleted.

It slowed down that day I restarted it. Now, when I turn it on, I cant even type in the first letter of my password without is going to the color wheel. The login screen disappears every 5 minutes as it keeps loading the screen over and over.

It will not open in safe mode- the gray screen comes up, but there is never a progress indicator.

I can't take it into apple without spend $50. Any fixes to try at home? I dont have any of the CDs, I purchased this from a friend.

 

[spinnerlys]

Have you tried any of these steps?

Mac doesn't boot
Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck
Troubleshooting: My computer won't turn on​

You can get the Snow Leopard DVD for 29 USD to use it as replacement for the Restore DVDs.
You can also use another Mac with Firewire to use Target Disk Mode.

 

[xamberlymx]

First, hold down the option key (also known as the alt key) just after you've pressed the power button. This should show all the available options to boot from, so if you have Windows installed through Bootcamp or a disk in your SuperDrive, you should be able to see them along with your OS X drive/partition.

I did this and it have me a screen that said Mac Hard Drive and an arrow. I clicked the srrow and it brought me to the login screen. It looks normal but when I try to type anything in it goes into this tailsping of color wheel, then
reloading the page a million times. It stops, but as soon as I try to type it freaks out again.

PRAM reset [2]. Hold down option, command, P and R while booting. Start it when you hear the sound and don't let go before it reboots.

Did nothing. Started up the same way as safe mode- grey screen with little progress wheel, then into the login screen.

***When I press the power button, it does respond with the restart-log off-shut down screen though.