Dead screen... and then a faulty HD?

[chrzis]

I am currently writing this post on my Windows XP partition, as my mac partition won't start up... but let me start from the beginning.

About one month ago, my computer would occassionally wake or start with a dead screen. The computer was working in the background, just no screen. After a few attempts at restarting/sleeping/force shutdown-restarting the screen would magically work again!

I am about to take it in to get the Apple guys to look at it.

Then, this morning, my mac won't boot at all. The screen comes on with the nice 'apple' sound, and then about 10 seconds later the computer just turns off.

I loaded my boot disk and had a look at Disc Utility. My hard drive needs repairs, and it can't do it. I click the repair button, and a few moments later it just gives me an error message.

But I can use my Windows XP partition. (which I'm using now)

So, as I have replaced the HD myself 6 months ago, what is the diagnosis? (Seagate 320GB 7200')

Does anyone think that this screen and HD problem is related?

Oh - details. 15' Macbook Pro purchased in late 2007. (Just when 10.5 was released)

 

[electroshock]

What's the error message that Disk Utility spits out?

Do you have an utility such as TechTool Pro or DiskWarrior?

 

[chrzis]

Okay, here is the complete script for the error messages. And I don't have any other Disk Tool programs.

Step 1 - I click on 'Verify Disk'

Verifying volume "Macintosh HD"
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Invalid key length
The volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired.

Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit

1HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair


Step 2 - I click on 'Repair Disk'

Verifying volume "Macintosh HD"
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Invalid key length
Volume check failed.

Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit.

1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repairs

 

[electroshock]

Hmm, hard to say based on these messages. My impression was filesystem damage that resulted due to the unclean shutdown (aka crash). It's not clear if it was due to the crash or due to the HD... but I'm more inclined to think HD issue was due to the unclean shutdown and that it's likely OK. No real way of knowing without running a disk analysis tool.

 

[chrzis]

What disk analysis tool would you recommend? (freeware is good!) And how would I use such an analysis tool without being able to start my computer in mac mode?