Fixing disk errors from secondary screen

wideman

Registered
I have an odd problem. I have a Powerbook which, although it is getting to be an older machine, refuses to die. It fell off my desk a few times last year, which shattered the screen and cracked the casing... but the beast lives on. I do have some drive errors that occur occasionally, and it is causing slight instability. My fear is that these errors will grow to be cataclismic if I don't fix them.
The real problem is simply this:
I need to run fsck or disk utility from startup in order to fix the drive errors. I can only use a separate monitor to view the screen, and the laptop does not show anything on that screen unless I do a full normal boot.
How do I make the command prompt (I can't use terminal after startup to do this, it has to be done before log in) or the OS X install disc to show up so I can repair the disk. OR I need a way to fix physical drive errors after starting up. I don't believe the second one can be done, as once the OS is loaded it won't allow such changes.
Thanks!
 
You could start up from the Mac OS X install disc and use Disk Utility from there. Don't have to run the installer, just choose Disk Utility from the menus. Hold down the "C" key to start up from the CD/DVD (which of course has to be in the drive).
 
The problem is that I have to use an attatched monitor, and if I start up with the install disk it doesn't show up on the monitor. The laptop only displays on it's own screen, which is broken... that is my problem..
The one possibility I thought of is to run fsck based upon what I know will show up. I've tried to just type fsck -y once I had given the command prompt time to run, and it sounds like the computer processes once I hit enter, but upon startup the situation is the same no matter how many times I type it.
 
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