no desktop icons and finder not working

[sammsousa]

hello guys and gals, i could really apreciate some tips here as im completly lost. ill try to be as descriptive as possible
i have been running yosemite for 2/3 days on a mid 2012 imac.
everything was working ok since the upgrade, but recently i had to do a 'hardcore shutdown' by keeping the power button pressed because i couldnt close vlc player. the next time i turned on my computer it took for ever to boot and after entering the password it takes forever to show the main top bar, the icons on the desktop dont show up at all, i cant open finder or any other folders and when i hover my mouse anywhere over the desktop it just shows my the busy sign. after searching on this a bit, the only thing i found that came close to my problem, they suggested to press cmd+option+esc to relaunch finder (wich does say 'not responding') but that didnt help at all.
so does anybody have any suggestions?
just in case anybody would want to suggest time machine, i cant use it because i just heard about it when i upgraded to yosemite for the first time, so unfortenatly i dont have it set up, and other then that, i really cant think of anything else...
so if somebody has some info, please do share
samuel

 

[simonsi]

Would VLC not Force Quit - unusual to have to force power off for a single app.

Now you have the problem try a boot in Safe Mode and see if all is well, if it is then one of your login items is messed up and you should remove them one-by-one to find the culprit.

If Safe Mode is just the same then I would reinstall the OS.

Forcing power off is just that, there is always a risk that you can corrupt the HDD when you do so if the disk was being written to at the time.

 

[sammsousa]

i thought it was weird too, but no it did not.
ok so i did start in safe mode a it was the same thing, so i reinstalled yosemite, but its still all the same...does this mean im out of options?

 

[simonsi]

Then I would suspect your HDD may be dying....

 

[sammsousa]

so should i take it to the store for them to repair it? i really wanted to avoid that since i dont have anyway of backing up my stuff now...

 

[simonsi]

I don't think you have any other option.

 

[sammsousa]

oh man... well i do apreciate your feedback!