OnyX says I must repair disk; Disk Utility says hard drive is corrupt

[yourfireescape]

Hey, I'm new here, so sorry if I leave any important information out.

I'm on a 13.3" MacBook Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz 2 with GB RAM that's around 7 months old, running Snow Leopard. Lately (past week or two) I have had a lot of trouble using Finder, getting the 10810 error that a lot of users have been experiencing. If I am copying a large file (more than 1 GB) or if I have just attached an external hard drive, sometimes the beachball starts going and it won't quit. Relaunching finder is unsuccessful. I've had to use a hard restart 3 times recently because nothing else will work.

Since Finder was giving me so much trouble, I decided to run OnyX. OnyX told me that I needed to repair my hard disk, which sent me into extreme panic and a Google Search frenzy. From two threads (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/359837/ and https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/614295/), I'm thinking that things will probably be okay (fixable, no lost data), but I'm still pretty worried since this is my precious MacBook we're talking about.

I made sure all my data was backed up, and then I used Disk Utility to verify and repair permissions. Then I verified my disk, coming up with these error messages:

Missing thread record (id = 1098151)
Missing thread record (id = 1293146)
Missing thread record (id = 1303328)
Invalid volume file count
The volume [Hard Drive Name] was found corrupt and needs to be repaired.

Unfortunately, I can't repair the disk right now, as I don't have the Snow Leopard disc on me at the moment. I did run SMARTReporter, and everything looks good--no eminent failures.

So for my questions:
1. If I run Repair Disk with the Snow Leopard disc, will things most likely be okay? Will I experience any data loss?
2. Is there anything I can do other than Repair Disk or after I Repair Disk to help fix things?
3. Any idea why this is happening? (I like to understand the situation so I don't repeat anything I did wrong)
4. Is it okay to keep using my computer until I get this fixed, even though a corrupt hard drive seems like a pretty big problem? Everything seems to be running smoothly, other than the occasional bug with Finder.

Thanks in advance for your help, and let me know if you need any more information.

 

[cmckenica]

Hey, I'm new here, so sorry if I leave any important information out.

I'm on a 13.3" MacBook Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz 2 with GB RAM that's around 7 months old, running Snow Leopard. Lately (past week or two) I have had a lot of trouble using Finder, getting the 10810 error that a lot of users have been experiencing. If I am copying a large file (more than 1 GB) or if I have just attached an external hard drive, sometimes the beachball starts going and it won't quit. Relaunching finder is unsuccessful. I've had to use a hard restart 3 times recently because nothing else will work.

Since Finder was giving me so much trouble, I decided to run OnyX. OnyX told me that I needed to repair my hard disk, which sent me into extreme panic and a Google Search frenzy. From two threads (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/359837/ and https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/614295/), I'm thinking that things will probably be okay (fixable, no lost data), but I'm still pretty worried since this is my precious MacBook we're talking about.

I made sure all my data was backed up, and then I used Disk Utility to verify and repair permissions. Then I verified my disk, coming up with these error messages:

Missing thread record (id = 1098151)
Missing thread record (id = 1293146)
Missing thread record (id = 1303328)
Invalid volume file count
The volume [Hard Drive Name] was found corrupt and needs to be repaired.

Unfortunately, I can't repair the disk right now, as I don't have the Snow Leopard disc on me at the moment. I did run SMARTReporter, and everything looks good--no eminent failures.

So for my questions:
1. If I run Repair Disk with the Snow Leopard disc, will things most likely be okay? Will I experience any data loss?
2. Is there anything I can do other than Repair Disk or after I Repair Disk to help fix things?
3. Any idea why this is happening? (I like to understand the situation so I don't repeat anything I did wrong)
4. Is it okay to keep using my computer until I get this fixed, even though a corrupt hard drive seems like a pretty big problem? Everything seems to be running smoothly, other than the occasional bug with Finder.

Thanks in advance for your help, and let me know if you need any more information.

No. You would not lose any data with the system disk.

 

[toolbox]

No you won't loose any information - only if you format it

Boot of the SL cd, run disk utility and repair the disk that way. You can't repair a disk that you have booted up from. Also might be worth repairing the disk permissions too whilst your there.

 

[yourfireescape]

Repair worked!

I ran Disk Repair in Disk Utility after booting my computer up from the SL disc, and it looks like everything is as good as new! Thanks for the responses and making me feel a little better until I could get my hands on the SL disc!

 

[toolbox]

Good to hear! - Make sure if you haven't, start getting some backups happening. Never know this might happen again and the disk can not be repaired

 

[sushi]

Make sure if you haven't, start getting some backups happening. Never know this might happen again and the disk can not be repaired

Definitely agree.

Your hard disk will fail at some point it time. Best to be prepared beforehand.

 

[yourfireescape]

Oh, don't worry. I already had a backup in another place yesterday (it was an hour away) and I backed up my files in a second place just to make sure before I ran everything. I was just hoping everything would go smoothly on its own so I didn't have to deal with it! Thanks again for the help!