"Keys out of order" message in Disk Utility

Hi,
I was just doing a regular maintenance check with Onyx and to my surprise it said I needed to repair the disk using the Installer DVD and Disk Utility.
I did this and again to my surprise I seem to have a problem.
After the whole processs is complete these messages come up:
"keys out of order" (in red)
1 HFS Volume repaired (in green)
1 Volume could not be repaired (in red)
I don't know what to do about this. On the one hand my system seems to be running fine, but on the other if these errors are coming up then surely there is an issue which I need to resolve.
Could someone enlighten me on what to do next?

Hi,
Thanks. Unfortunately my battey died and now I am stuck on the apple logo at reboot. Opening disk utility via the install disk doesn't work as disk utils doesn't recognise any disks (even though I hear them spinning)
I am lucky in that I am able to access th powerbook's HD in target mode via firewire on my G5
so I am going to copy over a lot of my data and then invest in Diskwarrior.
However, I am a little confused with the Diskwarrior website. I would prefer to download as I am not near a shop to buy the software and I would rather not pay for express amazon delivery.
Would I be able to use the download of diskwarrior on my Powerbook?
It seems a little confusing:
"If You Are Purchasing DiskWarrior
Repairing your usual startup disk requires that you start up from another disk. In order to use the download copy of DiskWarrior, you will need to start up from another disk with Mac OS X 10.3.9 through 10.4.x installed. You will then need to run a copy of DiskWarrior from a disk that is not the disk you are repairing. (The DiskWarrior download does not include the Apple System files necessary to create a startup CD.) If you cannot use the download version of the software (i.e. you have only one internal hard drive and this is the drive you wish to repair), please order directly from our sales department or from one of our resellers to be sent the software on CD. If you order via the secure server, you will be sent a CD, but delivery of your CD will take approximately three to four weeks, depending on your location."
Basically I am in a hurry to get my Powerbook working by Thursday my two options are
a)Buy from Amazon and pay extra to get express delivery by wednesday
b)Buy download from Alsoft (with cd version on way in 2-3 weeks)....however if the download version is not sufficient then i'm screwed.
I'd really appreciate help here. It just happens that I have to work away on Thursday....and I therefore need my powerbook. I usually use my G5 in my home studio.
THANKS!!
Message was edited by: recall

Similar Messages

From previous post HD gone, Keys out of order???

Thanks to those of you who answered my last post. You're really a beacon of hope in what seemed at the moment, a Mac-less (or at least a HD less) world.
I ran First Aid from the utilities menu, and it came up with a "keys out of order" message. The utility wasn´t able to fix it, so the question is: will diskwarrior do the trick?? I mean I really have a lot of important material in that computer, but I would like to know if this is going to work, before paying $90 bucks...also, as I will be receiving the download in another mac...do I have to make a boot disk or is it possible to do a remote fix?
thanks a lot

No one can answer this question. A reported "Keys Out of Order" is a significant problem and although Disk Warrior has been known to work miracles and should work, there is no guarantee provided.
Are you able to boot from and access this hard drive at all so you can transfer/backup all important data?

Keys out of order?

i think this is a command line question. i recently unplugged my B&W G3 so i could use the space to play with my new (to me) G4. i also "borrowed" some RAM from the G3 to install in the new machine. when i tried to hook up the G3 again, it would not load anything. i did the usual 'zap' and 'option' dance, which did finally bring the beast to life, but it would go to black screen where i would get "root". i know very little about Mac OS command line, so i didn't try to do anything there. i would type 'exit' which would give me a run down of the start-up POST and end in a "panic, stops here" line [sorry, not the exact term, but your get the idea].
so i put in the OS install disk (OS 10.4) and run the first aid utility to see whats up. i get a red line that reads "Keys out of order, needs repaired". what does that mean? i ended up erasing the hard drive and am now reinstalling the OS, but was wondering what mistake i may have made to crash the system in the first place.
Message was edited by: rtabish

The "keys out of order" message indicates your hard drive has file directory corruption. Disk Utility can't fix, but usually DiskWarrior can. I don't think the RAM removel/reinstall could have cauised this problem.
Besides using DiskWarrior, the only other option is to erase & reinstall the system which you have done.
 Cheers, Tom

Weird "keys out of order" problem

So, keys out of order was new to me, but I've read up about possible fixes... My situation seems strange, here's why...
I was working on my dual 1.8 G5, 10.4.11, clicked on a video link, then got the greyed out screen, and the multilingual restart message.
So, I did several restarts, but the fans would go to full, and it would shut down before showing any activity on screen. So I entered single user mode, and typed the command for checking the disk (thankfully I could get info from the web on my macbook). That's when the 'keys out of order' message was first seen. After reading up I tried to run the fsck thing, which I read could be an option. I got an 'unable to repair' message. Then I put my workmates machine into target disk mode and started from that disk and tried to run disk utility over my startup disk, of course it didn't work, with several warnings in read about keys out of order etc.
So I'm learning that DiskWarior is probably my best bet, but in the meantime I put my machine in target disk mode, and using a handy hint I found online, dsragged out my g3 iMac, booted it into OS9, extensions off. Connected by firewire, my G5 HD showed up and I was able to drag off some recent files, Mail folder etc. (At this point let me say I did a system back to a DMG file on a separate partition of an external USB drive several months ago, and that maybe 99% of my work and important files are on another external drive, so it's not life and death here.)
NOW... comes the strange part. I go back to my machine, and just for a lark try to start it up again.... and it starts up fine, no problems, everything normal. Wow I think, I'll go and run disk utility over it now, so I restart using my friends powermac, and run said program, and get exactly the same errors, keys out of order. hmmm.
So I go back to my machine, restart using its own system, all good, all fine. So I plug in another external HD and do a clone of the internal drive while its all working fine.
So, since then its been running fine, (about a day and a half). But what should I do, and what's going on? Should I reformat my drive and out the earlier cloned system on it? Would the recent system clone I did likely be corrupt? Does it seem right that my system should work OK now, when Disk Utility was still reporting keys out of order? Should I pony up and buy DiskWarrior? (can't really afford to to be honest)
I'm a bit flummoxed, thanks for any help...

Hi, weird but not completely inexplicable.
Indeed Disk Warrior is your best bet, IMHO every Mac oener should have it.
I wouldn't completely trust any clone/backup once you get that error.
Generally the only real fix for that error is DW, or Zeroing your drive & reinstalling.
http://supportdb.alsoft.com:591/FMPro?-db=alsoftsupport&-lay=main&-max=15&-forma t=AlsoftSupport-qa.html&-script=counter&-token=182&-Skip=101&-find

I have an iMac mid 2010. After Disk utilities said the drive was corrupt, I ran the hardware test (extended) 3 times. No problems. I than ran Disk utility again and got 2 messages in red-keys out of order, and --Volume corrupt, can't be repaired. I tried

I have an iMac mid 2010. After Disk utilities said the drive was corrupt, I ran the hardware test (extended) 3 times. No problems. I than ran Disk utility again and got 2 messages in red…keys out of order, and ……Volume corrupt, can't be repaired.
I tried to do a system install, but message said…disk can't be changed. Will a complete erase and install fix this ?
Everything is backed-up.

There's hardware and software.
Your drive could physically be in good condition but something has caused the file structure to be messed up (it just happens sometimes). The directory that keep track of files is corrupt. Disk Utility can help determine if that is the issue. In some cases it can repair the problem but it cannot do it to a drive that is being used to boot the system while you are doing that. You have to boot from another drive. Some things DU cannot repair and you need to try a stronger utility such as Diskwarrior.
A failing hard drive (one with mechanical issues) can be a cause of file structure issues but this is by no means always the case. Apart from looking at the SMART diagnosis feature of Disk Utility (and smart isn't totally reliable) there often isn't a way to tell if a drive is failing until it suddenly happens, which is why you need to maintain backups.
In your situation it does sound serious and not just minor directory corruption. You can try erasing (formatting) the drive, You may need to do this if it is really corrupt, in which case there could be underlying physical issues. I use old technology but if you have the patience you can try erasing the drive with the security option of writing zeros once (don't do more unless you are going on a 3 week vacation). This makes the drive not simply assume everything is okay by forcing it try every part of the drive by writing data. If something is gong wrong you may find it marks a lot of bad sectors, or flat out refuses to format. Then you know you need a new drive.

Disk Utility reports "keys out of order"

The machine I have is now reporting some worrying signs, when using Disk Utility it reports "keys out of order" which I have no idea what this means.
When starting in single user mode and running sbin/fsck -f it comes back with disk0s5: I/O error keys ot of order. Also its unable to repair
Bought Drive Genius and this say unable to fix and reports
error: invalid HFS resourse fork clump size in volume header (0)
HELP, what do I need to do and does anybody know what the problem is, come to to that what should I do.
Have just bought a 160GB D2 extreme hard drive firewire extreme drive as I think this might be very handy here. Assume that back up every thing is going to be essential
Thanks in advance of possible solutions
David

This is a difficult error to repair and neither Disk Utility nor fsck may be able to repair it. In which case you would need to try Disk Warrior which may have success depending upon the extent of the problem.
Boot into single-user mode and run the command, fsck -fy, at least four consecutive times but not more than seven. If fsck finally returns with a drive OK message, then it has successfully repaired the problem. If it does not succeed, then either use Disk Warrior or reformat the drive.

Disk utility says "keys out of order,... HD could not be repaired"

I have been trying to install osx 10.4.3 (just the update version) from the store bought kit. It fails during check of destination volume. First I found out that it was not a good idea to have 3rd party memory installed so I removed that, but no change. I have tried to repair HD using disk utility launched, at first from 10.4.3 install disk, then from original 10.3 install disk. Disk Utility now says:
Keys out of order
Rebuilding Catalogue B-tree
the volume Mac HD could not be repaired
Error: the underlying task reported failure on exit -9972
1 volume could not be repaired
Shortly after I install these 2 sticks of memory yesterday (referenced above), I was having troubles. Don't remember exactly what or what sequence, but got the locked beachball 2 or 3 times. At some point, there was a 'static' type "POP" over the speakers and maybe from the tower too but at that instant the desktop background reverted from some green apple swirls to the default blue swirls. Other than that everything continues to work perfectly fine. Static electricity is really non-existent here ; very humid, and I was carefull during install of the memory.
I made a disk image yesterday to back up selected files prior to trying to load 10.4.3 and not sure if I may have done something wrong there....
I have some 3rd party software installed like Nikon scan, Audacity, Firefox. What else do you need to know?? How do I fix the HD? How can it be messed up if everything is working normal?

It's not likely that the memory installed caused the corruption of the B-Tree, more of a coincidence that you noticed it soon after the installation. To fix a problem of that magnitude, you have two options:
1) Back up all of your important data, erase the hard drive, and reinstall everything.
2) Buy a program such as DiskWarrior to fix the B-Tree without requiring you to erase your hard drive.

Keys out of order, disk utility fails

PowerPC (?, whatever came just before Intel-based machines) iMac running 10.3.something failed to boot - hangs at "Logging into OSX" window but never gets there to log in. Booting from Install CR-ROM and running Disk Utility fails to repair Catalog. Booting in single user mode results in "Keys out of order (4, 51882)" "The volume Macintosh HD could not be repaired". Also tried to boot from Prosoft "Data Rescue II" CD-ROM but no help
Any suggestions to repair/recover?
Files all appear to be there - can navigate around in Unix and list them. Also have external Lacie hard drives connected (unconnecting does not resolve problem) - Would there be a way to cp or rcp some key files to these external drives to at least recover some?

Welcome To  Discussions jeff_st!
If all else fails, and you have access to another Firewire enabled Mac, you can also use Firewire Target Disk Mode, to backup as much data as possible.
Then reformat the HD, zeroing all data, and perform an Erase & Install.
ali b

Keys out of order - reinstalling OS X or get Disk Warrior - Advice?

My nightmare is below but before describing it, I'm at this point in the problem: using an IBM laptop I've already logged into my 800MHz Mac G4 using Target mode and extracted all important files using HFS Explorer. Now I need help on what to do next so that I can try to save myself from having to reformat the Mac's hard drive. The full story:
I ran 5 Apple software updates (listed below with approximate versions from my recollection) and the Mac installed them fine but rebooted to a blank blue screen. The OS level before running these updates was v.10.4.10 ...
Apple OS X version 10.4.11 update
QuickTime v. 7.5.1
Java Console update
iTunes 8.0.1
…and one other minor update program.
... after several reboots I found that the Mac was pretty much gone. The error message I got in verbose mode was: "keys out of order, (4, 726)". I started the Mac in Single User Mode and ran several variants of the fsck command (-y, -fy, etc.) about 4 times each and no dice - the message I always got was: "Rebuilding catalog B-tree"... followed by: "volume could not be repaired". The Mac will not boot from the Mac OS X CD and I already tried holding down the "C" key trick but no dice there either. The only thing I haven't tried yet is typing "boot cdrom" at the Apple Firmware prompt - and wanted to ask if anyone thinks this might actually boot the OS X CD (?)
At this point my real question is how to preserve the programs & files on the Mac and get it back working, if possible, without having to reformat the hard drive. I did not purchase Disk Warrior because the Mac won't boot the OS X CD using the "C" key. The Mac will eject the CD tray and I can insert the OS X CD but the CD never spins up and the Mac spits the CD out and then shuts itself down. If the "boot cdrom" command will work in the Firmware, then purchasing Disk Warrior becomes an option. I see my options right now as the following. Anyone know which option is best to reduce the headache factor and save the wallet.
1. If "boot cdrom" using Apple Firmware will in fact boot a CD, will using Disk Warrior preserve the Mac's installed programs (Adobe Suite CS2) once Disk Warrior creates the new hard drive volume?
2. Use "boot cdrom" using Apple Firmware and re-install OS X (will Adobe Suite still be installed?) Yes, it's a legal copy of CS2 but the install CD is not at my house and will take a week to get.
3. Reformat the hard drive, install OS X and reinstall Adobe Suite, reconfigure my wireless settings, etc. and all the other stuff you have to do after a hard drive has to be reformatted.
4. Take it to the local Apple Store
5. ??? Any other options out there ???
Thanks in advance.
RPQ

Thank you for the replies. Here is the final outcome on this one: a bad hard drive. The verdict from a local Apple authorized service center was that it was a coincidence that the hard drive (made in 2001) pretty much failed at the point when I was running the 5 updates. On their test bench, my Mac would not boot from the OS X CD or a DiskWarrior CD, but, it would boot from an external hard drive. I was told the CD-ROM drive and hard drive are on separate buses so the service provider did some testing with a new hard drive and the old hard drive. They were straight with me and everything they tried made sense because they were the same problems that I encountered when trying to fix/diagnose the Mac. In the end, they installed a new 250GB hard drive, installed OS 10.4.6 and gave me the old hard drive back – on which I still can access all the old files just in case I missed any with my original copy job to my laptop using HFS Explorer. $169 total bill. Not bad.
I still think there is probably a way to clone the old hard drive but that could have run up the labor charges and by that time I could have purchased another entire (used) G4. So the only real loss is not having the Adobe CS2 suite of programs installed but I can still get the install disk if needed. Now sitting in my update list is: the Apple update to OS 10.4.11… the minimum OS system requirement to get a brand new Nano to work on a Mac. My fear is that running that update might cause the same Keys out of Order issue on this ol’ Mac so I’m thinking that I’m not going to install any more updates – just in case!

Keys out of order error message?

My PowerBook had a very bad crash after awaking from sleep. DiskWarrior will not work but I was able to use Apple disk utilities disk. The error message reads "keys out of order." After many attempts, I was able to use it as hard drive to back up all my files. I have been using a Mac a very long time and subscribe to numerous magazines but I have never heard of this. Any help will be greatly appreciated. I should probably add that it still will not start.
G4/15 inch Mac OS X (10.4.3) 2 gigs of ram
Quick Silver G4/933
Quick Silver G4/933

Happy New Year Tuttle and ROdan,
This is an interesting problem, unless of course it is happening to oneself!
FWIW, there has apparently been success with a G5 booting in OS 9 without extensions. See:
This got me thinking. If the machine is already on, and the OS tries to mount the disk, but the disk driver is damaged, well, bad things happen. Also when he writes, “When the drive spins up, the system loads the drivers from the device, and then executes it.” Really got me thinking. So obviously I cannot have the OS load the driver. But how do you make the Mac NOT load the driver? And more, even if you could, would the Mac even “see” the drive and mount it?
In OS 7, 8, and 9, a common work around to get your Mac to boot when it was having problems was to hold down the Shift key to turn off extensions. Most problems in OS 9 and earlier were caused by extensions, so it was a very handy tool to use when troubleshooting problems on your Mac. But there is no equivalent in OS X that I am aware of. So what to do?
Step Five: OS 9 with no extensions.
I remembered from my IT days that if I booted Mac OS 9 without extensions on, any attached FireWire drive would also appear on the desktop. So I shut down the G4 running OS 9.1, fired up the G5 in Target mode, waited for it to get up and running, and restarted the G4 9.1 machine with extensions off.
Victory! There was the bad drive, as well as the good one, in the G5 mounted on the G4’s desktop!
Step Six: Copy! Copy! Copy!
Before I did anything else, I quickly copied all the files I was missing since my last backup. Unfortunately, that also meant copying around 40GB of music files. So late Saturday night, I started the copying, and by Sunday morning, all my files were now safely on the good G5 250GB hard drive.
Step Seven: Repair Time!
The first thing I did was run the OS 9 version of Disk Tools on the bad drive. As expected, it could not fix the problem. But I had, prior to connecting the G5 the first time around, installed the OS 9 version of Alsoft’s Disk Warrior on the G4.
I ran Disk Warrior on the bad drive. It took a LONG time. What Disk Warrior does is builds a new directory on a drive, which I was hoping would cure my problems. After three hours, Disk Warrior was done. It found a BUNCH of problems. To be on the safe side, I ran it again. This time it took only a little more than an hour, and did not find any more trouble.
Shutting everything down, I rebooted the G5. I held down the Option key so that I could tell the G5 which drive to start from. It only saw the new drive as a viable boot disk. Oh-oh...
I held down Command-S to bring up UNIX after the next boot, and ran FSCK-F on the bad drive. It worked, fixing a few thousand items. Yikes! What did Disk Warrior do? I ran it again, and it repaired some more. Three times, and it was done.
Restart.
Welcome to Macintosh!
And all was well in the world.
A few things to take away from this:
Not all problems are as bad as they seem. There are usually always solutions to your computer problem. Some involved thinking way outside the box. How many people would have figured that Mac OS 9.1 with extensions off would be the solution to this Keys out of Order problem? Certainly not I.
In most cases, Disk Warrior would have fixed this problem without all the run around I had to do. If you don’t already own it, you may want to go pick up a copy. It’s well worth the small investment.
FSCK is not always going to repair or fix your problems. So be sure to back-up your data often.
Having two hard drives is WAY better than having only one. If you have an iMac or Portable in which you cannot cram in another drive, look at external Firewire hard drives.
It is also helpful to have another Mac laying around for the Target Mode trick. Can’t afford one? I see them on eBay all the time, REALLY cheap!
Hope this article helps someone else out there if you ever run into a similar problem
The full link is:
http://www.mymac.com/showarticle.php?id=1817
Joe

10.4.10 'Keys out of order' - unable to repair disk!!

After getting sick and tired of endless problems with my 3 month old iMac, which only seem to get worse with every update, I've just run the Disk Utility. It found many problems with permissions and sorted those out. So then I thought I'd just verify the disk to make sure and got this....
Verifying volume “Macintosh HD”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Keys out of order
The volume Macintosh HD needs to be repaired.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair
But no, it can't repair the disk.... Help!

I have to say I bitterly regret switching to Macs
- very expensive, unstable, and clearly susceptible
to fundamental problems like this.
All modern computers are susceptible to this sort of problem (file system corruption) -- that's why it is a fundamental problem. If you want to avoid the possibility, you have to avoid using a file-based OS, which limits you to OS's embedded in ROM ... like maybe a 30 year old Commodore 64.
Seriously, if you want to protect yourself from this sort of problem -- no matter what OS you use -- there is only one reliable option: backup your files regularly to something other than your startup drive.

"Underlying task" + "Keys out of order" + Not turning on

I've been running my Powerbook G4 for the better part of two years now, and now that my one year Apple warranty is conveniently expired I'm having repeated problems.
A few weeks ago I had the first problem, which was a complete system freeze. I shut down from the power button and from then on I couldn't start up the OS (spinning wheel on startup screen).
I sadly found no solutions after trying to boot from the install DVD and using the Disk Utility ("The underlying task reported failure on exit" when I tried to verify/repair disk, as well as repairing permissions.), so I erased the entire harddrive and then reinstalled. (I had to do this twice because the update to 10.4.9 made my applications not work, but I figured that problem out and got everything working and in order).
After getting all my applications installed again, and registering them all, everything seemed fine. Everything worked for the next week or two, and then the system froze again. After waiting in silent horror for a few hours I decided to use the power button again. NOW, the computer will boot up, everything seems normal at a glance. But you cannot open finder, or most applications, and when I open Firefox I get a very nice pattern of strange "u" shaped symbols.
I did the whole Install DVD disk utility shpeel, and successfully repaired permissions. Next, I tried to repair the disk and recieved something like "Keys out of order". After trying for a few minutes to repair a C-tree of some kind, the disk utility spits out a "The underlying task reported error on exit" message. Frusterated, I found something on the internet that told me to try "sbin/fsck -fy" in the single user mode. So I restarted and tried to enter single user mode, and the computer shut off at the grey apple screen.
Now I can't get past the grey apple screen, whether its with cmmd + S, cmmd + c, or just normally. It just shuts right on down.
I've tried taking out the battery and A/C connection and then turning it on, but still no luck. Also, I havent found any solutions for this on the web.
Luckily, I have all my music and other important files on an external firewire drive.
ANY help would be greatly appreciated.
Apologies for such a long rant.
Cheers
Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.9)
Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

I managed to boot the computer with the option + power button so I can access disk utility now.
The S.M.A.R.T status of the drive is "Verified".
I'm working on getting a copy of DiskWarrior right now, hopefully that resolves the problem.

Invalid leaf record count, keys out of order?

Yesterday I returned home from a month long trip which I did not bring my 13 inch 2011MacBook Pro on.
I plugged it in and turned it on, and connected my phone to it so i could retrieve some photos. I looked away and looked back to see the grey "You must hard shut down your computer" error message. Possibly because i think the phone may have been disconnected without being properly ejected? So i turned it off and then later the next day, when I try to turn it on it is stuck on the white apple loading screen forever. When I startup with Command+R and enter disk utility, it tells me:
Invalid Leaf record count, keys out of order, volume could not be repaired. When I startup in single user mode and use fsck -fy it tells me the same.
I got it used less than a year ago. I have some pretty heavy applications like MS Office, Photoshop and a few other adobe applications, and The Sims 3.
Help!

When Disk Utility can't repair a hard drive, with an error like that, many buy Disk Warrior to do the repair. You can see an answer on the Disk Warrior site here.
Or, if you have a system backup, erase the hard drive (I would probably do a secure erase and write zero's to the hard drive) and restore it.

Hard drive verification keys out of order

Following a period of very slow reponses and some screen flicker I ran disk Utility and on verifying my hard disk (a single volume) I got the message while it was checking the Catalog File saying 'keys out of order' The underlying task reported failure on exit' followed by 'the volume needs repair'. I used my system CD to try and repair the volume but got the same message. Can anyone tell me what it means and what I should do?
The machine appears to be working OK otherwise and the slow responses and flicker have sorted themselves but Disk Utility still thinks there is something wrong. I have Tech Tool pro but am a little wary of running it having heard a few horror stories.
Thanks

If you don't have a backup, do that. If you have Disk Warrior, try it, but I think TechTool Pro 4.5.1 should be fine. But always backup first.
Start using an emergency clone / system drive. Either internal (there is room for four drives after all) or FireWire (might want FW800 card and case which run as well as the ATA/100 bus).
You can always boot into single user mode (command s on startup) and at the prompt, follow the line of instructions above about typing in "sbin/fsck -fy" to fix and repair the drive. But, in a case like yours, you should be using Tiger DVD 10.4.6 and may need 3rd party utility. So I'd upgrade TTP if you have not, and buy some disk drives.
But, I would never "it seems to be working" assume that it is or that it won't get worse - it pretty much has to get worse.
Throw out what you don't need, remove what you have backed up, remove cache folders, and make sure you have at least 20% free space.
My guess, with TTP4 and people having problems, it is rare, they didn't have a backup. DW seems to be - in over 6 yrs of use, the safest. It does one thing, and the only time it has trouble is the drive doesn't have room to write a new repaired directory, or it takes too long to scavange a drive.

Grey screen, keys out of order

Hello and ...help, hard drive problems!!
My iMac G4 with 10.2.8 was acting strangely - Word & Excel wouldn't work, long spinning beach ball. Upon restarting got stuck at the grey screen with the spinning cog. I have tried a variety of suggested fixes without success. Using disk utility ended with messages such as "disk not mounted" and "keys out of order" in red print. Repair completed was indicated but no joy with startup. Started in Single user mode, tried fsck - same "keys out of order"(4, 3140) & Volume can not be repaired.
When starting with a firewire link to my iBook the message was "you have inserted a disk containing no volumes that MacOX can read. Am i looking at a. Full reintitialising or
b. a new hard drive
Is there a way to retrieve any files??
Thanks in advance
Geoff

I don't know if Disk Warrior will cure all your problems but it is known to fix "keys out of order" problems and to rescue hard drives that seem impossible to fix.
Here is more information about this program:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19441
So I would certainly try that first. It is a great utility to have around so would not be a waste of money even if you do have to replace your hard drive.
If you don't get your hard drive running again the only way to get your files is from a disk retrival place which is very expensive.
Renae

"Keys out of order" message in Disk Utility

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