MacBook w/10.5.7 won't progress beyond gray screen

I have an administrator and user log-in profile on my MacBook. I tried to update Firefox to 3.5 and install the application in my alternate user log-in. The computer reported that I didn't have permission, so I went to the main administrator log-in, selected the hard drive icon on the desktop, selected get-info, and changed all permissions to read and write. I logged back in as user and installed and ran Firefox. Restarted machine and now just have gray screen with spinning icon. It keeps trying to restart, screen goes black and then to gray again with spinning icon. Help anyone? I reset PRAM and tried to start from a friend's 10.5.6 CD for a MacBook Pro but the machine spits it out. I bought the MacBook used so don't have original CDs. Thanks!

And by the way it won't boot in Safe Mode either, but by holding down option/shift/delete I can see my Hard drive icon. Again, thanks.
Richard

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