Macbookpro display and disk repair issues

[davedavedave]

In trying to deal with some annoying issues affecting the display on my 2.16 Macbookpro 15inch, running 10.4.11.

The initial issue I noticed started about a week ago. The problem I is with my display. I have display settings on the same as I have had for years, (1440 x 900) but suddenly about a week ago the display started to appear to be too big for the screen - 1cm of either top or bottom, and left or right, is hidden, off screen the end of the screen. When I move the mouse it automatically drags the entire deskop, including the background and the menu bar, revealing the hidden 1cm at one end and hiding 1cm at the other end. The mouse moves the desktop/display in this way almost every time I use the mouse, regardless of what programme I am using at the time.

I have looked at the display preferences. The only thing peculiar is that the computer seems to think I have my TV connected to it (which I have not done for about 2 weeks) - so I click detect displays. Then it realises that there is no TV connected but this does not resolve the problem - part of the display is still hidden etc.

With no idea what else to do I ran the disk utility (verify disk).

I got this log message:

Verifying volume “My Mac”
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking Catalog hierarchy.
Checking Extended Attributes file.
Checking volume bitmap.
Checking volume information.
Volume Header needs minor repair
The volume My Mac needs to be repaired.

Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit


1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair


I also then got a pop up window that said:
First Aid failed. Disk utility stopped Verifying "My Mac" because the following error was encountered: The underlying task reported failure on exit.

The Repair Disk option is greyed out and unavailable.

What am I to do???

I am really worried and I would really appreciate any advice.

Dave

PS I have uploaded a screen grab of the disk utility log and pop up, and some photos trying to illustrate the display issue taken with my phone - sorry about the bad focus on it. I have also uploaded a video trying to illustrate the display issue in action to http://drop.io/mactroubles

 

[jbarley]

check in your "System Preferences - Universal Access" and see if "Zoom" is turned on, if it is turn it off.

You cannot "Repair" the disk you are booted from.
To repair your boot drive, boot from your install DVD and run "Disk Utility" from the "Utilities" menu in the top menu bar.

 

[davedavedave]

Wow - how simple - it was indeed the zoom!

Do you think I should do the repair disk anyway? It was clearly an unrelated issue.

Thanks so much.

 

[jbarley]

Yes you should always keep your boot drive in good repair, otherwise all kinds of strange happenings are possible.
BTW, when you do run "disk repair" and if it tells you that it "Repaired Errors", then run it again, and again if needed until the message reads "no problems found".

 

[davedavedave]

Thanks loads. I really appreciate the help.

 

[Satcomer]

You should boot into you install Disk, start the installer and when the menu bar appears look in it to find "Disk Utility" and use the to Repair" your Disk (if it can). Then you should really consider a new internal drive. Once these same errors on the disk start coming up you know it is time to backup and get a new drive. Do this before the drive ultimately fails hard and you might loose your precious data/pictures/music.

 

[davedavedave]

Ah you really think this is the beginning of the end for my MBP? As it is a laptop, is it possible to replace the internal hard drive? Do I need to have a repair centre do this for me?

This is the first time I have noticed problems like this but i can't say how long they were there as I had not run Verify Disk for about a year. However, when I did the repair through the startup disk it said it only needed to do "One minor repair".

(I do regularly back everything up to an external disk).

 

[davedavedave]

Actually is it possible I caused the problem by fairly regularly removing or replacing the battery while the computer was on but asleep?