Locked up MacBook air 

My MacBook air is locked and showing the coloured ball symbol. I have shut it down using car/alt/cud and start button, several times, when switched back on, although all applications are closed, it s fine for about 1 minute then it locked up again.

Can you boot to the Recovery HD?
Boot Using Command+R keys:
  1. Restart the computer.
  2. Immediately after the chime press and hold down the
      "COMMAND" and the "R" keys together.
  3. Release the keys when the Utilities Menu appears.
If so, then try repairing the drive:
Repair
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility and press the Continue button. After Disk Utility loads select the Macintosh HD entry from the the left side list.  Click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If Disk Utility reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit Disk Utility and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
If the drive is full and you cannot boot from it normally, then the disk directory is corrupted and cannot be repaired. You will have to erase the drive then reinstall OS X. There is no way to recovery your data if it isn't already backed up.
Erase the hard drive:
  1. Select Disk Utility from the main menu and click on the Continue button.
  2. After DU loads select your startup volume (usually Macintosh HD) from the
      left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
  3. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Optionally, click on
      the Security button and set the Zero Data option to one-pass. Click on
      the Erase button and wait until the process has completed.
  4. Quit DU and return to the main menu.
Reinstall OS X: Select Reinstall OS X and click on the Install button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
           because it is three times faster than wireless.
This should install the version of OS X that you had installed.

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