Macbook will not boot

I have a macbook that will not boot. All i get is the Apple logo screen with the loading thing spinning below it. That as far as it will go. I suspected a bad hard drive...I have tried using the disk utility...everything on there says that the hard drive is fine...I ran the repair disk and it told me everything is ok. What should I do? Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Have you tried repairing your permissions? You mention repairing and checking the disc only so it might be worthwhile trying to repair any incorrect permissions using DU as well.

I have not tried to repair disk permissions. I will though.

Also, when i try to make a backup copy (restore) to an external HD, it wont let me..It tells that the file system is read only. Is there any way around this?

Thanks!

Which filesystem - the external or internal? Are you trying to back up to an NTFS drive? If so, you should note that OS X only has read only support for NTFS. You can install some programs to change this but if you are only using this as a backup drive, you shouldn't be using NTFS.

Ok, so you are saying the external drive that I am copying to cannot be NTFS? If so, how would you recommend that I go about making the external HD capable of working with the macbook?

Does this sound like a HD issue to you?

It could very well be a filesystem issue. If you right click the HD and choose Get Info, what does it say for "Format"? If it's NTFS, you can format it through DU. Note though that formatting deletes everything off of the drive so copy what you need from it before your format.

The internal HD says the format is Mac OS Extended (journaled)...Is there a way that I can format my external HD so that I can copy the data from the internal hard drive?

Sorry, I meant to get you to check the format of the external HD.

Yes, you can format it if it's not Mac OS Extended (HFS). Open up DU > select the external on the left hand side > erase tab > change "Volume Format" to "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" > give it a name > click Erase...

Note again though that formatting will delete all the files on the drive so copy anything you want to keep to another drive first. Also make sure you click the right drive in DU before you format. The last thing you need is to format the wrong drive.

Ok i formatted the external HD to the Mac OS extended (journaled) and tried to copy over the data....It started off good and I thought it was going to work...it said copying files at the bottom but then i got an error saying that It could not restore - Input/output error...

Does this mean the hard drive is hosed?

is there any other way to get the data from the HD?