Rather Urgent: Mac HD cannot be repaired. Bootcamp windows effected?

Question

This is rather urgent, as I need the computer for the Bar Examination on Tuesday (two days away!)
Today, my MacBook Air gave a "question mark" folder on booting. I tried booting from a disk, and using Disk Utility. The Disk Repair said it cannot repair the Mac HD, advising to backup, reformat, and re-install.
I also have Bootcamp Windows 7 installed. That is currently working fine. And that is what I need for the Bar Exam. If everything stays as is, I am okay.
So my question is: Will the damaged Mac HD ruin the undamaged Bootcamp Windows? And if so, what can I do to fix this?
There's special software called ExamSoft that is required to take the Bar. Unfortunately, you can only download it once, and you have to verify the laptop when you download, so this is not something I can download after reformatting. I can not reformat the harddrive until after the exam. (They advise keeping the software on for 9 months!) But I am okay with that, I can deal with all my other computer needs afterwards, but with just two days away from a three day exam, I am very worried about my Bootcamp Windows going down, taking the exam software with it.
Please advise!!

Answer 1

As you've already taken the bar exam, this reply comes too late to take care of that initial fear of losing everything.
I do have some steps that you can follow now that the stress has subsided:
1) Get yourself a copy of Alsoft Disk Warrior (the latest is 4.1.1) -- It's worth its weight in gold
2) Find your system CDs or 10.6 cd -- whichever is newest
3) Get an external drive that you can format for mac
Depending on whether you mind losing the data on the Mac side of your computer or not will determine the steps you would need to go through and how much work it will take to get back up and running.
*If you don't mind losing the data on the mac side of your system:*
1) Boot to your 10.6 cd or latest system disk
2) When it makes it to the installation screen choose English. Then from the Utilities menu at the top choose Disk Utility.
3) VERY IMPORTANT TO DO PROPERLY -- Choose the Macintosh HD partition (not bootcamp and NOT THE MAIN DRIVE).
4) Select Erase tab and make sure the format is Mac OS Extended (Journaled), name can be anything you want. Click the Erase button.
5) Quit Disk Utility and go through the 10.6 installation process as normal.
6) Once install has finished, you can restore your data if you have it on a time machine volume or on another Mac, otherwise just set the system up fresh and install your various Apps, etc.
7) Follow the steps below to make a backup/image of your Windows Boot Camp partition
*If you mind losing the data on the mac side, follow these steps:*
1) Boot to the Disk Warrior CD -- (If it doesn't boot to the cd due to the system being newer, you'll have to create a Bootable hard drive for the Mac - http://www.ehow.com/how5142897make-bootable-usb-mac.html. Once you have a bootable drive you can drag copy DiskWarrior to the bootable drive from off the CD after you've temporarily booted to the external drive -- hold Option key at startup and select the external hard drive to boot to it)
2) Attempt to repair the Mac HD partition using Disk Warrior, and if it's successful you can continue with these steps -- if it's not.. consider your mac data lost to standard recovery methods.
3) After it repairs, restart and boot to the 10.6 or latest System cd you have.
4) Under the Utilities menu, choose Disk Utility, and check your Mac HD for problems.. since Disk Warrior cleaned up the directory structure it probably won't have errors.
5) Walk through a standard install of 10.6
6) Perform all updates and BACK UP YOUR STUFF!
7) Follow the next steps below to make a backup/image of your Windows Boot Camp partition
*To back up your Windows Boot Camp Partition:*
1) Once your system works on the Mac side again, make sure you're booted into the Mac Side.
2) Download and install Winclone (drag to your applications folder) http://download.cnet.com/Winclone/3000-2242_4-172338.html
3) Run Winclone and select your bootcamp partition.
4) Plug in your external hard drive and make sure it's formatted for Mac, if it's not, use Disk Utility and choose the external drive, and choose to Erase the volume and format as Mac OS Extended. THIS WILL ERASE THE DATA ON THE DRIVE, there's no way to convert the drive to Mac Formatted from a PC format. It's not recommended to use a PC formatted disk for this, it's possible that it might work but it's not worth the risk if it doesn't.
5) Inside Winclone, click the Image.. button, give your Bootcamp image a name such as: Bootcamp 2-25-2011
6) Save the image onto the external drive.
To restore the image you can open Winclone, click Restore, select the disk image you saved, and then restore it to the BOOTCAMP partition. A restoration would be necessary if you were to wipe the whole drive, if you were to install a newer drive into your system, if you wanted to resize your bootcamp partition to be larger, or if you were to migrate your BOOTCAMP partition to another system.
Hope that helps you and others!
Message was edited by: wizdomonwheels