MacBook Pro OCCASIONALLY won't shut down or restart

It seems like this only happens after I've been dealing with large files or, I guess, doing a lot? Example: I've been working on a large-ish file in Pixelmator and if I work on it long enough, the program lags. I also just purchased a rather large album on iTunes this morning (close to 60 songs) and when it was finished, iTunes lagged. Whenever something like this happens, I try to restart my computer just to sort of refresh it, I guess, but it just sits with my wallpaper and the spinning circle on the screen. For hours. Until I hold the power button, but this distresses me, as this is the EXACT reason I bought a Mac in the first place.
I have tried to run Disk Utility from my installer disc, but after selecting the language, a window pops up saying Snow Leopard can't be installed and asks me to either restore from Time Machine (which I don't use) or just restart regularly. It won't let me access the menu bar options (except "Speech.")
I have zero idea what Onyx is and would like to avoid having to download it if I can.

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Is your software all up to date? If not, that would be the first thing to do. When done updating, be sure to repair permissions.
Also, be sure that any third party software you might have is fully compatible with Snow Leopard.
Also check in Activity Monitor to be sure you don't have some runaway process hogging the CPU and bogging everything down.
Don't know why you can't get to Disk Utility on the install disc--the most logical thing to do is to boot from the install disk and navigate to Disk Utility and repair your boot disk. No idea why you're getting this message and can't access Disk Utility.
Can you boot to the Apple Hardware Test? If so, it might be worth running the extended version of it to see if anything shows up in the form of an error code.
If you don't get an answer here, you might try asking in the Snow Leopard forum. Unless something shows up on the hardware test, this sounds like more of a software problem.
Good luck!

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HELP!!!
Here are the specs of my machine:
2011 13.3" MacBook Pro
4 GB Ram/320 GB HD
For the past several months my MacBook Pro refuses to shut down or restart without holding down the power button. Whenever I choose to restart or shut down the computer, it will hang on a grey screen. I have even tried letting it hang for an hour, and it still won't shut down. I notice that once in a while it will retart or shut down correctly if I had not used opened iTunes since turning it on. However, even manually closing iTunes before shutting down or restarting does not solve the problem. It seems as though it only shuts down if iTunes was not used since restarting the computer. Is this a registry error? Do I need to reinstall iTunes? I noticed this problem began happening after I uninstalled Kaspersky Virus Scanner, could that be the problem as well? Also, I cannot guarantee that the problem is only associated with iTunes. I just noticed that one of the few times it shut down or restarted correctly, iTunes coincidentally had not been used. Also, this problem started happening while I was still using Lion and has continued despite upgrading to Mountain Lion.
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I have AppleCare. Should I take my macbook to the genius bar?
Applications I normally use are Word, Safari, FireFox, iTunes, FinalDraft, Photo Booth, Notes, Mail, App Store, etc. No real heavy lifting.
Any feedback would be very much appreciated. :-)
Thank you everyone!!

I have this question too.

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MacBook Pro OCCASIONALLY won't shut down or restart

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