trouble with harddisk

[Pyl]

Hi!
I've got some trouble with my hard drive and would appreciate some advise how to deal with it (for I am a Newb...).

Macbook; OS X 10.5.8
Problem:
freezes while starting up (showing the "wheel of horror"...
starting pressing C with an 10.3 disc works (found 10.5 later)

disk verification shows:
volume file count
(It should be 795431 instead of 795442)
volume directory count
(It should be 201386 instead of 201375)
Filesystem needs repair

Backup is on the way.

Is there any elegant way round reformatting? I've got loads of old data and wouldn't be able to regain all programs...

Any advise?

Thanks a lot in advance,
Pyl

 

[riptideMBP]

just curious, did you ever try "repair disk" rather than just "verify disk"?

 

[Pyl]

Currently I can't use the button (although I started from CD).
Probably I should've pressed "C" longer while restarting?

 

[riptideMBP]

Probably I should've pressed "C" longer while restarting?

Are you saying you aren't sure if you started from the dvd? If so, try holding the option key instead so you have to manually select the dvd drive

 

[Pyl]

Thanks a lot, that saved my day!

It worked very well - wasn't aware of the option to repair the volume from DVD...
Again:
Thanks a lot!