Unable to find driver

I'm getting this error message: 'panic(cpu 0 caller OX0039C213): Unable to find driver for this platform "ACPI", overlaid on the kernel panic screen at startup.

I can't reboot into safe mode. In single user mode and verbose mode, the same error message appears and I can't type anything after it does.

This happened after I HAD a kernel panel, booted into safe mode, uninstalled recently installed applications (norton antivirus and stuffit) and deleted items from library/startupitems.
i then restarted to see if it would work normally, but now i can't even boot into safe mode.

i'm posting all of this from the windows partition of my macbook, which works fine.

HELP! my macbook is (sigh) not even 2 months old.