Cannot startx or xinitd

Question

Hi all, I'm feeling like I"m knee deep in problems with X
I got Arch installed yesterday and the processes in general went through with just a minor hitch here or there, otherwise everything was fine.
I went along following the beginners guide getting packages installed and such, when I hit a wall at getting X working. The first issue came up when I tried starting X like this:
# X -config /etc/X11/xorg.conf
The screen turned black and never reverted. I couldn't CTRL+C or CTRL+ALT+DEL/BKSPC out of it, nor could I even switch TTyl's. I did a cold restart, edited xorg.config and gave it a few more tries but kept getting the resulting crash.
I then tried the other method of testing X as outlined in the Beginners guide, and the screen went black again, but then reverted back to console with this error:
hostname: Unknown host
xauth: creating new authority file /home/fox/.serverauth.2740
[truncated misc info]
X.Org X Server 1.6.1.901 (1.6.2 RC 1)
Release Date: 2009-5-8
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Build Operating System: Linux 2.6.29-ARCH i686
Current Operating System: Linux aurora-project 2.6.30-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Jun 19 21:25:17 UTC 2009 i686
Build Date: 28 May 2009 10:40:05PM
Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
to make sure that you have the latest version.
Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
(++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Thu Jun 25 11:25:37 2009
(==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf"
xterm: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/libXcursor.so.1: undefined symbol: XRenderQueryExtension
waiting for X server to shut down
Another oddity concerning X is stemming from pacman. When I ran pacman to try to download libxxcursor this came back out:
warning: libxcursor-1.1.9-2 is up to date -- reinstalling
resolving dependencies...
error: could not open file /var/lib/pacman/local/libxrandr-1.3.0-1/depends: No such file or directory
error: could not open file /var/lib/pacman/local/libxrandr-1.3.0-1/depends: No such file or directory
looking for inter-conflicts...
error: could not open file /var/lib/pacman/local/libxrandr-1.3.0-1/depends: No such file or directory
error: could not open file /var/lib/pacman/local/libxrandr-1.3.0-1/depends: No such file or directory
Targets (3): renderproto-0.9.3-2 libxrender-0.9.4-2 libxcursor-1.1.9-2
Total Download Size: 0.00 MB
Total Installed Size: 0.53 MB
checking package integrity...
checking for file conflicts...
error: could not prepare transaction
renderproto: /usr/include/X11/extensions/render.h exists in filesystem
renderproto: /usr/include/X11/extensions/renderproto.h exists in filesystem
renderproto: /usr/lib/pkgconfig/renderproto.pc exists in filesystem
renderproto: /usr/share/doc/renderproto/ exists in filesystem
renderproto: /usr/share/licenses/renderproto/ exists in filesystem
libxrender: /usr/include/X11/extensions/Xrender.h exists in filesystem
libxrender: /usr/lib/libXrender.a exists in filesystem
libxrender: /usr/lib/libXrender.so exists in filesystem
libxrender: /usr/lib/libXrender.so.1 exists in filesystem
libxrender: /usr/lib/libXrender.so.1.3.0 exists in filesystem
libxrender: /usr/lib/pkgconfig/xrender.pc exists in filesystem
Errors occurred, no packages were upgraded.
I don't know whats going on. I have a nVidia 8800GTX card, so I installed the proprietary nvidia driver and ran nvidia-xconfig to make my xorg.config file. I would greatly apperciate any help. The internals of xinitrc, xorg,config and Xorg.0.log.old can be found below
xinitrc:              http://dpaste.com/59714/
xorg.config:     http://dpaste.com/59715/
Xorg.0.log.old: http://dpaste.com/59738/

Answer 1

One thing at a time.
Pacman is complaining because your system retains traces of the packages which you removed and now desire to uninstall.  To suppress these errors and overwrite your old files, use the -f flag to pacman (usually this is not what you want, but in this case your original setup wasn't working anyway, so you have nothing to lose).
Pacman may also be complaining because some files which it expects to find are not there (possibly due to the filesystem problems you're experiencing).  If core files are missing, you should probably reinstall.  If it's problems with the database, sync it with pacman -Sy.
I'm not sure why your filesystem is messed up, but it seems likely that it is a result of powering off your computer while programs were in use.  It's not unusual.  Your hard drive is (probably) not failing, and your Arch install is (probably) recoverable.  That said, if you continue to have unusual problems, you may choose to simply reinstall.
When you have all the above solved and Xorg installed again, remove .xinitrc and xorg.conf, and run startx again.