Not able to run installer when booting (Snow)Leopard on MacBook Pro Unibody

Question

Hi all.
I would very much appreciate any help with this issue...
I have recently installed an app called monolingual(stay away from it - don't touch it with a stick) - I thought I'd get a couple of GBs off my HDD by deleting the surplus languages... Unfortunately this resulted in other apps behaving strangely and rendered them unusable. I thought this would subside, if I'd reboot the machine. Unfortunately what I found, when i did so, was a blank default MacOs wallpaper(the one with the universe) and nothing else - not even a login prompt... Long story short - I have tried many things in single user mode - booting in verbose mode, to see what's up(nothing out of the ordinary) - booting in safe mode(didn't change a thing), and of course trying to restore my HDD from Time Machine - God bless time machine... Unfortunately in order to do that - I need the MacOs installer(which can't be reached) - I have tried to boot from DVD, while holding the C key, the option key - then choosing the DVD as the bootable device of choice, I've tried to install it remotely from my brother's macbook via ethernet - nothing worked. Also I have attempted the PRAM NVRAM reset as well as the SMC... I have tried all these things with both OsX Leopard and Snow Leopard... Nothing at all worked. To make matters worse, I am worried about my hard disk, as the only way I can shut my machine down is by holding down the power button, until it turns off(keyboard shortcuts don't work, and there are no menus or anything available) - that can't be good for HDD. As far as booting from my superdrive goes - the DVD seems to be booting{I can hear it working and see the progress (the dots and the drivers loading) in verbose mode}, however at some point it just reboots the laptop with no warning or message, and the whole ordeal repeats. I am desperate and running our of options... could someone please, please, please help? Any clue or tip would be greatly appreciated and will most likely spare me a nervous breakdown.
Am I completely screwed, or just a little? Can this be fixed? For the record, I have no Apple Care, and my 1-year warranty had expired in November. Any suggestions?
Thanks up-front to any kind soul with an answer or just kind words.
Sincerely,
Piotr.

Answer 1

Re-partitioning a drive without losing data is a very difficult task. The data on the TM drive are, at this point, irreplaceable.
It has been safe and a very common practice on a Mac to be able to add, remove and resize partitions for years. Apple supports it well with Disk Utility, and even for Bootcamp.
Time Machine is just a file/folder on a partition, even if it's only on one partition. The Time Machine drive itself is not special in any way other than it has been set up to work on a Mac with the proper partition scheme and format.
I was just suggesting a way to use the OP's mentioned hardware to perform some sort of test that would prove something, in order to know which step to recommend next. If Disk Utility says it can not create a new partition at the end of a drive, then there are fragments of data in the area and Disk Utility will refuse to resize the first partition to be slightly smaller. The OP can also go buy another drive for the experiment, and also use his brother's drive like *R C-R* mentioned. He can even buy a large USB thumb drive but I don't think he needs to buy anything for a 'test'.
It is also very common for users to create new separate partitions on an existing TM drive for other machines to use. In fact, this is the preferred storage method when sharing TM with different machines because a partition can be easily removed without disturbing adjacent TM backups, it provides for a way to control the size of each machine's TM backup, and because it's much faster to replace a partition instead of trying to delete a TM backup with Finder. These are accepted practices we've learned the hard way.
Going the other way, I routinely set up external 1TB drives for two partitions. The first 750GB partition is for TM, and the second is for a SuperDuper bootable clone. As requirements or user preference for TM or SuperDuper may increase due to larger boot drives or for whatever reason, the second partition can easily be deleted, and the first partition can be safely enlarged, with no data loss.
Now in the case of a drive that is over 85% full or was ever that full, there is a high probability that the second partition can not be created due to files getting copied to the end of the drive. Disk Utility will refuse to change a drive like this.