CANNOT LOAD MACBOOK. TAKES FOREVER TO GET PAST THE APPLE LOGO, THEN WON'T EVEN GET TO THE POINT WHERE IT ASKS FOR PASSWORD

When you say "load up screen", I assume you mean the Apple boot screen (it has the apple on a gray background).

You might try resetting the PRAM on the macbook.
You can do this by pressing and holding the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.

So, turn the macbook completely off. Turn it on and immediately press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys until the computer reboots and chimes. Once it chimes, release the keys. Your system should boot normally.

This sounds like a possible filesystem corruption, possibly due to a bad update from Apple. What is the error that "Disk Utility Repair" gives you?
You may be able to take it to an Apple store to get your data restored, as they (sometimes) have special tools that scrape the existing data from the filesystem even if the metadata is corrupt.

See if you can start your Mac in safe mode:

Shut down your Mac and wait 10 seconds.

1. Press the power button.
2. Immediately after you hear the startup tone, hold down the Shift key. You should press the Shift key as soon as possible after you hear the startup tone, but not before.
3. Release the Shift key when you see the gray Apple logo and progress indicator (spinning gear).

To leave safe mode, restart your Mac normally without holding down any keys during startup.

If you can boot in safe mode, you have something on board your computer that's interfering with startup. If you've recently installed software, system extensions or 3rd party preference panels (Adobe and Microsoft stuff is notorious), try to disable or de-install it. If you can't get booted in safe mode, you may have a hardware or memory problem that might require technical repair. Repost your progress.

Reset the PMU!

hi juli this is glady even i faced the same prob in my i phone to so download a new firmware from apple site nd then switch off ur cell while conectd to ur pc then switch on through ur apple pc suite upgrde ur phone through the i tunes o give the path nd see or better to go to youtube for more crystal clear info bye

Get your install disk and reset the password when it loads from disk.

Press and hold the power button. After a few seconds, the MAcBook will shut down.
Regards,
Cybernanga

go to bios setup load optimal defaults.
then save.

If you get the Apple logo with spinning lines underneath it but not getting past this stage then the hard disc is being seen but something is failing in the boot process, causing it to stall.
Most likely this is a case of incorrect file permissions which is easily solved.
There are 2 ways of doing it, depending on whether you have an OS X install disc to hand or not.
IF YOU DO HAVE AN OS X INSTALL DISC:
Insert the disc into the DVD drive, power on the Mac on after hearing the chime hold down the C key. This forces the Mac to boot from the DVD. After a few minutes you'll get a screen asking which language you wish to use as the main language; select English or whichever is appropriate for you.
On the next screen the Installer box will appear. Ignore this and instead on the menu at the top of the screen select Utilities -> Disc Utility. Once this has loaded select your hard drive on the left hand pane and then first click "Repair Disc" and once that has finished click "Repair Permissions".
Once these have completed successfully reboot and OS X should load up fine.
IF YOU DON'T HAVE AN OS X INSTALL DISC:
This is a bit more tricky. You have to boot into single user mode. To do this power on the machine, and after the chime hold down Cmd (Apple key) and S together. The screen will turn black and an a load of white text will start appearing and scrolling upward as the system loads. Basically this is what happens behind the Apple startup logo, only in single user mode rather than multiple user mode.
After a few moments the text should stop scrolling and you should see a prompt which looks similar to:
localhost: / root#:
Note that localhost is the name of your computer so will possibly be different to "localhost". At this point type the following EXACTLY including spaces, capitalisation and dashes etc:
/sbin/fsck -fy
now press enter, then type:
/sbin/mount -uw /
now press enter then type:
diskutil repairPermissions /
and press enter. It may take a few minutes to repair the disc's permissions, but once complete you should have the 
localhost: / root#:

prompt again. Now type:
reboot
and hit enter. The system will then reboot and should boot into OS X without issue.