Mac Forums

Alright, so I got my new macbook on Tuesday but didn't set it up until Wednesday. My friend downloaded a bunch of programs on it Wednesday and yesterday. These programs included Logic Pro 9 (including Jam Packs and MP3s he has recorded with Logic) Adobe Photoshop, and a few others I can't recall.. I downloaded 3 applications - Skype, Firefox, and Adobe Flash Player (I had to download this to play YouTube videos.) I also downloaded Microsoft Office 2011 Student Edition (compatible with Mac) I bought it with my MacBook.

So anyway, I logged on this morning and everything was working fine but I noticed it was running a little slow. I thought that it was just from all the programs my friend had downloaded. I got home a couple of hours ago and a gray screen with black coding in the background shows up as soon as I turn it on. It says I should restart my computer and things like that. In the background coding it says my Mac OS X hasn't been installed... Which is weird..

So I called my friend up and we went through different ways of turning it on to get it back to normal and nothing seemed to be working. Finally I put in the MAC OS X Installation disc that came with my laptop and I was going to just reinstall the OS but I'm wondering if there's any way I can keep all these programs my friend downloaded.


My main question: Can I reinstall the Mac OS without losing all my recently downloaded programs, etc? I don't have an external hard-drive if that helps and I haven't backed up my files yet (it's only been 3 days..)

Also, what do you think could have caused this to happen? These programs my friend uploaded couldn't have had a virus in them because he has used them frequently on other Macs.

Sorry this is so long, but this is my first Mac and I have little experience with them. I'm wondering if I should just call Apple Support but I was thinking of doing that as a last resort.
Thanks for reading, lol.