Need help - Mac Air not working properly

First time mac owner- ive used them but not extensively. Anyways, I received a Mac Air from my father and it is having problems. I start it up and it will say finder cannot open. I can click ok, cancel, or reopen. Doesnt matter which, because when it goes away the top menu bar flashes on and off. I can click the magnifying glass in the right corner and try to type something but itll disappear again. Sometimes im lucky enough to get it to stay for a couple seconds.
Anyways, I have also tried pusing the on/off button and am greeted with the shut down, restart, sleep menu. When I click any of these it does nothing. it will not restart or shut down. I have to hold down the on/off to shut it off.
I have go into single user mode and done the fsck, first time said it was modified, second time it said my volume was ok so I rebooted by typing reboot in the command. Still the same issue as before, no change.
I have also tried gettting into safe mode and Im not sure anything changed since it still operates the same. I have connected to wifi, but firefox wont open.

I dont know what to do, ive done research. As its a mac air it doesnt have a disc drive and would use a usb bootable to reinstall the OS. I dont have one. I dont care if i lose the previous info on the computer. If I am able to make a bootable usb on a pc that will work on my mac air im all for it. Just tell me how. If there is another solution im all ears for that as well.

Thanks.

Try doing a recovery: OS X: About OS X Recovery

I'm not really completely following what is going on (from the description)…but you could try this…booting into the Recovery Partition (assuming this MacBook Air isn't a super old model).

To boot into the Recovery Partition…you reboot the computer (press the power button if it is currently shut off)…then press & hold the two-key combo (command + r). The "command" key is the one that looks like a 4-leaf clover (and has "command" written on it sometimes).

At this point one of three things will happen:

1. Nothing (if it's an older MacBook Air that only had a much older version of the Mac OS installed on it).
2. The computer will boot into the Recovery Partition…which will present you a window with some functions on it (Disk Utility, Safari, etc.).
3. Internet Recovery (the computer will connect with Apple…and start downloading the OS install file for the last downloadable OS version that was installed on it).

Give this a try…and let us know what you get.

- Nick

Tried command + R, justed booted as usuall, finder not found, flashing menu bar, no menu at the bottom of the screen still either.

borjawil said:

Tried command + R, justed booted as usuall, finder not found, flashing menu bar, no menu at the bottom of the screen still either.

Click to expand...

Just to be sure: You have tried powering the MacBook Air on and immediately holding command+R down simultaneously until you see the Apple logo ... correct?

Yep, sure did. tried it a few times. Disk utilities will not open. Opened disk startup and clicked the OS X 10.6.8 which Im assumig is what im working with. My computer restarts and the "finder quit unexpectedly" window comes up, as usual. I was able to get on the internet by going through system preferences, and then clicking mobile me and "learn more". Tried downloading a software update and The computer basically freezes. The mouse can be moved but its a pinwheel most of the time and when its the arrow it cant click anything. Ive tried the "Time Capsule" thing and I have no backups. No "Airport" things were found when trying to set one up. I tried to update the timecapsule thing and it says the update quit unexpectedly.

I think your only options are a bootable USB drive or external DVD drive.

thats what I have been trying to figure out. Can I make a bootable usb on a PC to use on my macair?

After searching I found a video saying to hold control and S at start up and type in some things to reset the mac. It worked and I selected United States- continue, then U.S- continue for the keyboard setup and the continue button becomes unclickable and nothing happens...any ideas?

The bootable usb would have to be created from another Mac OS. If the Macbook Air is old enough that it doesn't have a recovery partition, it should have come with USB thumb drive usable for restoring the system.

Other things to try: 1) hold the option(alt) key while booting .. does it show more than one partition to boot into? 2) hold command+option+R (three fingers) while booting - if wireless is available, you may get an internet recovery screen.

Unfortunately, there may be a deeper issue to come that will need to be resolved. The age of the machine probably means that it has a hard drive ... which quite possibly is failed/failing.

I tried all of the combinations of keys for different entry at start up. seems the other partition was a windows partition. either way it needed to have the os reinstalled so i brought it to the new apple store in my area. shouldnt cost me anything. Now when I get it back how do I create a bootable usb just in case?

borjawil said:

Now when I get it back how do I create a bootable usb just in case?

Click to expand...

OS X Recovery Disk Assistant v1.0

borjawil said:

Now when I get it back how do I create a bootable usb just in case?

Click to expand...

Depends which OS version it is running.

- Nick

os x 10.6.8 is that mountain lion or snow leopard? What is the difference? Which is better?

For your version of the MacBook Air (with Snow Leopard) you will need either a MacBook Air Software Reinstall Drive (MacBook Air (Late 2010): Frequently Asked Questions about Software Reinstall Drive which should have originally come with the machine) or an external DVD and an installable copy of a Mac OS version (preferably Lion or better)

borjawil said:

os x 10.6.8 is that mountain lion or snow leopard? What is the difference? Which is better?

Click to expand...

The earlier question was about a bootable USB. And I replied that it depending on what OS it is/was running.

- OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard came on DVD). So with with a MacBook Air...you would need an external optical drive to use an install DVD.
- Mountain Lion (OS 10.8) is downloadable via the Mac App Store...then you can make a bootable USB install drive.
- OS 10.7 (Lion) which wasn't mentioned...is also downloadable via the Mac App Store...and then a bootable USB installer can be made.

Just for clarity...10.6 was the last OS on disk...10.7, 10.8, 10.9 are downloadable via the Mac App Store.

- Nick