Hi Jacob,
Just to do a quick rundown on what you have done so far in terms of troubleshooting:
- Repair Permissions.
- Verify the start up disk. Does the disk utility indicates if "Macintosh HD appears to be OK"?
- Boot from installer disk and use the" Repair Disk" option.
Now a few questions:
- When you mean "initiate any software", do you mean like initiating software update or app such as Safari or iPhoto?
- When was the last time you installed something on your computer?
I think you have done everything in regards to avoid a total system reinstall. But before we go with the steps of reinstalling the OS, I will suggest one more step, since you mentioned that the problem might have arised after installing 10.6.7.:
Reinstall OSX 10.6.7. Update via Combo updater:
Report back after installing the combo update.
About combo updates as a trouble shooting steps (from Cnet):
Combo
Apple's Combo updater includes all the files necessary to bring a major release of OS X from any previous version to the one represented by the update. For example, if you have the OS X 10.6.7 Combo updater then you can use it to update any Mac from any version of OS X Snow Leopard to OS X 10.6.7.
While Software Update will also provide you with this option, the Combo updater, like the Delta updater, is more universal and can be applied to any Mac system, regardless of its hardware or software configuration. Additionally, it can be reapplied to a Mac that has already been updated. Because of this, a Combo updater is frequently used when troubleshooting odd problems in OS X since it can be used to essentially replace a number of system files with fresh ones, without requiring a full reinstallation of OS X.
Good Luck!🙂