Disk Utility and Disk Repair function

Question

I ran the "Verify" function on the hard drive and came up with an Error, but can't figure out what to do next. The option of "Disk Repair" is grey. I found an older discussion about the specific error message - "Incorrect size for file YellowPushBtn_Pressed.tiff (It should be 0 instead of 5602)" This older discussion lead to the QuickTime application, but I was unable to local the file they talked about.
Any ideas on how I should proceed from here?
Thanks

Answer 1

Disk Utility won't repair the drive if that drive is the one from which the computer is currently booted. The usual thing to do is boot from the installer disc. I don't know about the shift key; I thought it was holding down the C key to boot from an optical disc.
What holding down the shift key does is boot you to safe mode which reduces the number of things running to a minimum. I have found that while you can verify a boot drive you can get errors and an analysis from safe mode reduces this likelihood.
*General Instructions*
Boot from the installer disk, select language if applicable, choose utilities, run Disk Utility and verify (and repair if necessary) the drive. You can verify a drive from DU on your main drive while booted but I have found this can result in incorrect reporting of errors. To repair your drive you have to run it from a drive other than the boot drive anyway.
Next, boot from your drive in [Safe Mode|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107393] and repair permissions. You can repair permissions while booted from the installer disc but this uses the permissions configuration on the installer disc which may be out of date if you have run any updates on your computer. Booting your computer to Safe Mode restricts the number of things running on your computer while permissions are being run and does a bit of spring cleaning at the same time.
[Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214]
[Using Disk Utility in Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302672]
[Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25751]
From BDaqua (couldn't have said it better):
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer (Edit: Do not use this disc if it is not the same general version as what you have currently on your computer, e.g. use a Tiger disc for a Tiger drive, not a Panther 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. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk.
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 completes."