OSX problems, can't reinstall!!

Question

I have a Macbook pro, it's about a year and a half old, and up until yesterday I've had no problems. Now I can't get my Macbook to start.
Here's the problem and what I've done so far:
My computer was in the middle of installing a software update when it froze. It couldn't recover, and I had to force a shut down (by holding the power button).
When I rebooted, it loads the page with the apple logo and a spinning disk, but won't get any farther than that, even after sitting for half an hour to an hour.
Once, during this sitting process, it's gone to a black screen with white writing. The error code that comes up is something like (and I could be wrong/missing something, it wasn't up long and I was writing it down as quick as I could)
Launchd com.apple.nibindd
bad system call
too many failures will couse job removal
It cycles through this a bunch of times with a countdown, and then when it has two tries left before 'job removal' it freezes.
When I booted up in safe mode it loaded. I went to manually reinstall the updates that it had been working on, but it told me that it couldn't because it required Mac OSX 10.5 (at this point after previous updates I was running Mac OS X 10.4.9). I deleted the downloaded updates at this point, uninstalled Firefox and msn (both programs have caused minor problems in the past), backed up my really important data, cleared out my recyling bin, researched for new updates, and it found none available. I then rebooted normally. It still wouldnt' load.
I then tried resetting my PRAM/NVRAM and it was successful-it rebooted on it's own after resetting, and for the first time made the Apple start up sound on reboot. I thought it was fixed, but again-just sits at the apple screen.
I then loaded my OS X disk, and run the hardware test. Everything comes back fine.
I restarted, and loaded from the disk again. I accessed the disk utility. I tried to verify permissions, but partway through it loses connection with the disk management tool and forces me to exit. It did this three times before I gave up verifying the permissions. I went straight to 'repair permissions' and after 'thinking' for a bit it told me there was nothing to repair. I then verified the disk, it told me everything was fine, I repaired anyway, and again everything was fine.
I tried restarting again, nothing.
I went back into disk utility and told it to reboot from HD (to ensure it wasn't attempting to boot through a network connection, etc), but no luck.
Finally, at my wits ends, I wiped my harddrive. I then reinstalled OS X but something isn't working. It first verified my installation DVD, that went fine. It then installed, but it never asked me to insert the second disk (even though it told me to have the second disk ready at the beginning of the install). After reaching 100% of the installation it forced me to reboot. I followed the instructions, rebooted, and it STILL just sits at the apple loading screen. The only difference is that now I can't get it to boot up in safe mode.
Help? I dont' know what else to do. Or what the problem could be. I need it fixed ASAP (I'm a uni student and this is my computer-I have two essays to write over reading week and can't really do it without my Mac!) so I'm reluctant to send it back to an Apple shop unless I've exhausted all options (I've heard horror stories from friends about ridiculous wait times), especially since this computer stopped being covered by a warrenty 3 months ago (the irony!). Any help is appreciated!!

Answer 1

Hey thanks for the reply!
1) To be honest, I'm not very tech-savy. I ordered my Mac online almost 1.5 years ago, and since I don't install any programs on it I've never really checked the specs-Beyond knowing that it has a 120G harddrive. Since I can't get back into safemode now I don't know how else to check my hardware specs. I believe it's just above 2GHz (like...2.15 or something), and I believe it has 2G RAM, but again...no way to double check that right now.
6/7)I realize now I should have purchased an extended warrenty, at the time it was simply a lack of cash-I'm kicking myself now. And the only bad stories I've heard were from two separate friends-one sent their ipod in to a Toronto office and didn't get it back for 6 months, the other sent their iMac in and didn't get it back for 2-3 months...both those were a Toronto outlet though, so I'm thinking I might have more luck at my school (I've found out they have an authorized reseller at McMaster). I don't know anyone else that's ever sent anything into Apple besides them, so I was a little hesitant to send it off based on what they said, but if that's not a common issue then I will most definitely bring it in on Monday if it's not fixed.
5) Good advice, I never realized updates could cause a problem until now...the installation just pops up on it's own when it's connected to the internet and I always allow the installation to continue.
I'm going to try erasing and reinstalling based on what you said, I'll let you know if it was a success. If not, is there a possibility it could be a hardware issue? Or is it most likely software related?
Thanks again!
Message was edited by: specialshi