Macbook Air won't start up past the "apple" page, and has a spinning icon. help!

Question

The computer was left on for over a week while I was out of town, came back and it was slow, then it started doing the "spinning beach ball" so I shut it down and now it won't start up again.

Answer 1

Hey Sarah.
The spinning beach ball of death is a tricky issue to fix.
You can delete everything in the caches folders located at:
~/Library/Caches
/Library/Caches
Also try an SMC/PRAM reset:
PRAM RESET:
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.
SMC RESET:
Shut down the computer.
Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power source, connecting it to the Mac if its not already connected.
On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time.
Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
Press the power button to turn on the computer. 
Note: The LED on the MagSafe power adapter may change states or temporarily turn off when you reset the SMC.
If you still boot to the apple screen your next option is to boot to the Mac OSX install DVD and run a disk check/repair.
Hold down option with your OSX DVD in your drive, click on the cd that appears, boot to the OSX DVD.
Click on utilities in the menubar, go to disk utility, select Macintosh HD, run a check/repair.
If this fails you'll need to run the Max OSX installer and reinstall your Mac OSX.
P.s since you have a Macbook Air your install DVD is the usb stick you would have got with your MacBookAir.