OS won't load up past white loading screen

Hi everyone,
So since last night my MacBook won't load up past the white loading screen with the apple and the spinning load thing... I last used it 4 days ago, and it was running fairly slowly, especially the login screen (ie after sleeping it would take a good minute or so to bring up the login box...), as I was away for the weekend (happy new year to everyone by the way!) I decided to turn it off and not take it with me. Unfortunately when I got back last night i was hit by the problem described above. I tried a safe boot but that made no difference, after the safe boot bar was complete the white screen (with the apple and the loading thing) continued...
My MacBook is a 13" black beauty from June 2007, and currently runs snow leopard. I don't have a partition with with windows or anything like that.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Try booting from your install disc while holding down the C key so you can run Disk Utility.
Using Disk Utility to verify or repair disks
While you have the Disk Utility window open, check Capacity & Available at the bottom of the window. Make sure there's a minimum of 15% free disk space.
And S.M.A.R.T. status should say Verified.

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