Restart loop

[Hayden5757]

My wife's Macbook pro (2010) is having issues upon booting/executing programs. Sometimes it starts up, sometimes it just displays a tiny box with a loading wheel. When she tries to execute illustrator or any other program it puts itself in a restart cycle.

I am a PC guy (booo I know) and I have no idea. I would assume hard drive but it does boot and allow her to browse her drive and folders, just not execute programs.

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[honestone]

Need more information:

1. What exact Mac OS is she running? And if she recently upgraded to a newer Mac OS, did she do it "in place", ie, basically have the new OS overwrite what was on the machine already?

2. Along with that, for any third party applications that she uses, are they compatible with the Mac OS she has? Also, have they been kept up to date?

3. This is critical: is she making backups to an external device?

4. Has she ever done any disk cleanup/repairs/maintenance. from a software perspective? It's important to do that on a frequent basis. She can do a good amount of disk cleanup on your own, and there are some excellent programs available (both free and commercial) that can help you with those tasks. Here are 4 excellent free ones that you might want to consider using:

Onyx: Available from here: https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html (make sure you get the correct version, which for you would be V 3.3.1)

AppCleaner: Available from here: https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/ (comes in handy when removing an application, and all its associated "stuff)

GrandPerspective: Available from here: http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/ (Neat, graphical way of seeing what files are occupying space)

Malwarebytes AntiMalware: Available from here: https://www.malwarebytes.com/mac/ (Excellent for finding any "adware" that can crop up on your machine via using the internet)