Macbook Stuck In Startup

We tried to install updates this morning, but it seemed to get stuck just before it finished. (It was going for hours.) So we hit the power button to turn it off. When we turned it back on, the gray screen with the Apple came up, but then we just got the little clock, and it wouldn't go all the way through the startup. It just stayed on the gray screen with the apple.
Bought this in January of 2010, not sure what the operating system is. Any help would be appreciated.

do you have any sort of backup? do you have the OS X install media that shipped with the laptop?

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