Safari, iChat won't launch ?

Question

Need advice, can't launch Safari or iChat. Or it will take them 10-15 minutes to launch.
This started after I was trying to do a secure erase on an external
firewire hard drive.
I think Disk Utility hung because the progress bar wasn't advancing
after an hour and it never completed the process. So I had to do a Force
Quit of Disk Utility.
Thereafter, I first had problems with doing a normal Restart. That now
seems OK after a Force Restart and a couple of regular Restarts.
But what is still a problem is Safari and iChat won't launch either from
the dock or from their location. They either show the arrow below their
icon in the dock or they do the bouncing thing but they don't launch.
Any advice as how to repair. I've run DU and Disk Warrior but all was OK
and still doing it.
Thanks for any advice.
Powerbook G4 Ti   Mac OS X (10.3.9)  

Answer 1

First, use Disk Utility from the hard drive to repair permissions. Check the following for possible fixes:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=607542&#607542
Originally contributed by MacJack:
1. Navigate to YourHome/Library/Fonts - drag this folder to the desktop.
    • Restart and test your applications.
    • If they work start adding the fonts back few at a time.
(Likely suspects are TimesRO & Helvetica Fractions, also if you do not use Classic you can trash the classic fonts.)
2. Check Preferences Thoroughly:
    • Go to Users/Your_Name/Library/Preferences and trash the files:
    - com.apple.ATS.plist
    - com.apple.BezelServices.plist
    Restart. If this did not help, go to Users/Your_Name/Library and drag the folder Preferences to the desktop. Restart and see if this solved the problem
    • Navigate to YourHome/Library/Preferences drag this folder to the desktop.
    • Restart and test your applications.
    • If this works, save the old preferences folder somewhere else or on disk, name it "old prefs."
** Note: A very important file is the "com.apple.Mail.plist" preference file located in the Preferences folder which contains all email account settings and general mail preferences (hold this one and replace if your problem is not with Mail).
You'll have to go through some of your System Preferences and apps to set the preferences back to how you like them. (Or if you have the time and inclination, "cherry pick" through until you find the problem one or two.)
3. Check Permissions Inside Home Folder
    • Navigate to yourhome/library.
    • Get Info (Command + i) on the "Applications Support" folder.
    • Open the "Ownership & permissions" disclosure triangle.
    • Make sure you are the owner, with "read and write" access.
    • Click on "apply to all"
    • If this is correct, open the "Applications Support" folder and do the same procedure (Command+I) for the folder names of the applications with which you are having trouble.
Note:
The reason to check this is because repairing permissions with Disk Utility doesn't touch permissions inside your home folder.