need help repairing disk

[amberose]

hello,
i am having some difficulty starting up my macbook. it comes up with a blinking file with a question mark. i've tried using disk utility to repair the disk but the repair disk button is greyed out. i'm able to go into single user mode but only if i have the startup disk in. i tried running the fsck check and it just comes back saying mac os x install disk ok. it does say root device mounted read only but i'm not sure what that means. please help i can't afford another mac and i really don't want a pc. any help would be greatly appreciated. thanks!

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

i tried running the fsck check and it just comes back saying mac os x install disk ok. it does say root device mounted read only but i'm not sure what that means.

Single user mode always mounts the root device as read only. That's the reason that you CAN run fsck on it. If it was mounted read/write then running fsck on it would be impossible.

i've tried using disk utility to repair the disk but the repair disk button is greyed out.

Is this the Disc Utility that resides on your internal hard drive or the Disc Utility that's on the Mac OS X Install disc/s that come/came with your Mac?

What I mean, have you tried booting off your Mac install disc and using Disc Utility that is in the Utilities Menu after you see the Language selection?

That would explain why the Repair Disc is greyed out as you can't repair an internal disc if it's mounted ... it needs to be unmounted first before it can be repaired.