Brightness keys stopped working; won't restart or shut down

A couple days ago my brightness and volume keys stopped working. I thought restarting my computer (i also needed to restart it to install a software update) would fix this problem but then realized my Mac won't go to sleep, restart, or shut down. Any ideas on what I should do? Thanks for the help!

Sounds like you'll have to, then...
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Tiger Mac OS X Install disc, then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Select your Mac OS X volume.
5. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk."
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214
Then Safe Boot , (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it finishes.
(If perchance you cant Find your Install Disk, at least do the Safe Boot part above).

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