Disk repair and startup\dvd drive issues

i'm running 10.6 on a 2ghz macpro - disk repair has found problems on the startup disk. i know i need to boot from another disc to repair the system drive, but i'm having problems doing so.
the dvd drive won't startup from either my original installation discs (tiger) nor my snow leopard dvd. restarting and pressing 'C' does nothing, then the tray opens and the mac starts from my HD.
I have a superduper backup on an internal drive, i can start from this but disk utility won't allow the repair of the main HD, saying it can't unmount it. I'm sure i've done yhis before by creating a temporary admin account and running dick utility from there, but even this isn't working this time.

First, under no circumstances should you try to use a Tiger install disk to repair problems on a Snow Leopard system. You need to use a Snow Leopard disk.
Second, make sure that you are using the disk that you used to install SL on the Mac Pro. It must be a disk that has a system newer or equal to the one that shipped with your machine. If your machine originally shipped with Tiger, but is currently running Snow Leopard, then any retail Snow Leopard disk should be able to boot the machine.
If the machine won't boot from a legit disk that it should be able to boot from, then either the disk itself is damaged or you have a hardware problem. Or, very rarely (I've only ever heard one first-hand report of such a thing), you could have such a severely-corrupted hard drive that it actually prevents you from booting from anything.
Are you able to load DVDs in your machine at all? What happens if you put in the SL disk when the machine is booted from another drive? Are you able to boot into [Apple Hardware Test|http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509]? If so, run the extended tests.
I'm not sure why you'd be unable to repair the drive when booted from a backup on a different internal drive. Does that backup drive have the same version of the OS? Are you running Disk Utility from the backup drive or from the drive you're trying to repair?
You could try booting into single-user mode (hold down command-s at startup), then type "fsck -fy" at the command line. When fsck is done, run it again. Continue until either no problems are found or until you're reasonably sure it'll never manage to fix them all.
You could also try getting a copy of [DiskWarrior|http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/index.html] or [TechTool Pro|http://www.micromat.com>, which can fix some things that Disk Utility can't.

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    Hi There
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    ↙-----------How do I give Kudos?| How do I mark a post as Solved? ----------------↓

  • Directory Damage, what can be used for Disk Repair and Virus Detection?

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    ↙-----------How do I give Kudos?| How do I mark a post as Solved? ----------------↓

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