Hi Trevor,

<<Let's break down the command that someone suggested to you.>>

Thank you very much for your helpful explanation of "/sbin/fsck_hfs -yprd /dev/disk2s3" (which I actually understood). The fsck command suggestion for potential repair of invalid node structure actually came from this post I had read and it seemed potentially viable:
techierambles.blogspot.com/2008/12/repair-disk-errors-like-invalid-node.html

I did run the /sbin/fsck_hfs command and it returned results with a bit more information, but with the same invalid node structure result as the sudo fsck_hfs -r /dev/disk2s3 command I had run earlier:

Janessdba$ sudo /sbin/fsck_hfs -yprd /dev/disk2s3
Password:
/dev/rdisk2s3: starting
** Checking HFS Plus volume.
** Checking Extents Overflow file.
** Checking Catalog file.
** Rebuilding Catalog B-tree.
hfs_UNswap_BTNode: invalid node height (1)
hfs_swap_BTNode: offsets 59 and 60 out of order (0x1F2E, 0x0000)
Invalid node structure
(4, 15924)
** The volume Mac HD 10.5 could not be repaired.
volume type is pure HFS+
primary MDB is at block 0 0x00
alternate MDB is at block 0 0x00
primary VHB is at block 2 0x02
alternate VHB is at block 234179422 0xdf54b5e
sector size = 512 0x200
VolumeObject flags = 0x07
total sectors for volume = 234179424 0xdf54b60
total sectors for embedded volume = 0 0x00

<<I think that DeltaMac's suggestion of using scavenge mode in DiskWarrior is a better one than continuing to attempt to use fsck_hfs>>

I think you and DeltaMac are probably both right. I understand DW scavenge mode and how it might help do a more thorough rebuild, but what I don't understand is how a more complete directory DW rebuild via scavenge mode could be migrated to my damaged drive where the regular DW rebuilt directory/disk could not execute a replacement action. Of course, it's probably worth a try.

I will provide a copy of the DW report from last week and you, DeltaMac, and anyone else can take a look at that to see what DW was already able to do. Again, although the full report indicated a hard drive problem which prevented the "replace" option, Alsoft Tech support advised that it was quite possible that the problem was not hardware related and that notion was (possibly) confirmed by non-problematic hardware tests that were run and the invalid node structure conclusion from the fsck Terminal operations.

Hi Ambrose,

All good points that you have made and thank you for your input.

<<In any event, the only possible cure for a stubborn Invalid node structure's presence which refuses to succumb to DW's suite of services is a full reformat (not erasure) of the drive.>>

Disk Warrior was able to successfully rebuild the directory of my internal drive, but was simply not able to execute the replacement. I am not able to reformat the drive for another several weeks because I am waiting for a set of replacement system disks from Apple (my Leopard disk is cracked and non-accessible) and since I'm running a PPC PowerBook G4, my options are rather limited..

<<You'll be better off, I think, scavenging for retrievable data and transferring it to a reliable storage medium rather than continuing in your attempts to restore the drive to working status.>>

My apps and data are all backed up on another drive...my problem is that my Leopard system on the internal hard drive can't be accessed and I can't get to the apps and files there, so I am in a pickle until the system disks arrive or I can get the internal drive repaired and mounted. I am currently running on Tiger on an external drive that literally has 1.5 GB of available space left.

<<Keeping its spin time to a minimum seems prudent.>>

How would I have any control over spin time if I can't access the drive? It's in an unmounted state.

One reason to limit "spin time":
The hard drive may be approaching end-of-life, so one way to HASTEN that demise is to keep trying new methods to "repair" the existing hard drive, and its directory.

Hi Delta Mac,

<<One reason to limit "spin time":
The hard drive may be approaching end-of-life, so one way to HASTEN that demise is to keep trying new methods to "repair" the existing hard drive, and its directory.>>

This makes good sense, especially since I hadn't thought about repair attempts in terms of putting a hard drive through a workout and affecting its "spin time". The message I had gleaned from my original read about trying a fsck approach to repair a difficult situation was that it made sense to keep trying the fsck command over and over again. One poster said he or she had tried the fsck command around 20 times before it eventually worked...another said it took countless tries for about an hour until the disk was repaired and advised to keep trying. Your comment sounds more logical to me. I think I will only try DiskWarrior in scavenge mode once before I give up and resort to a reformat or reinstall in a couple of weeks.

When I put my ear down to my keyboard near the trackpad over the internal drive, it is very quiet, so maybe that's a good sign. The internal drive that came with this replacement PowerBook may have always had some kind of problem. My impression was that the Leopard OS that had been installed from the computer store's server was never running quite right. I have a temperature monitor in my menubar and I have always found it curious that the Tiger external drive typically produces a temp readout 35-40 degrees cooler than what the internal Leopard drive usually yielded. I'm not sure what this means, but the internal drive was always running around 145 degrees when booted from Leopard (not to mention the constant spinning beachballs, frequent freezes, and just plain slowness overall).

It's true that repeatedly invoking fsck--either from the command line or via Disk Utility--will sometimes repair a seemingly irresolute fault in a drive's HFS logic structure.* Be that as it may, we do not know just how truly successful these repairs were, and I would be willing to bet that in some, if not most, of these cases, the drive subsequently failed after not too much of an interval. As for Disk Warrior's announcement of a successful directory rebuild, the replacement directory exists only in RAM until it is written to disk, which DW is unable to do because of the underlying invalid node error. The event is not a frustrating partial victory; it is a symptom of a more serious problem than a rebuilt directory can relieve.

I would say your internal drive's running temperature is worth some attention. I recall that the Fujitsu 2080AT was the OEM supplied unit for (at least some of) the PB G4s, and from visiting the Fujitsu site just now, I learned that they specify 55°C (about 130°F) as that particular model's maximum operating temperature. Heat is the second biggest killer of electronics (after dirty power), and running 10% over the manufacturer's maximum allowable temperature would definitely result in intermittent episodes of degraded performance, not to mention premature failure.

It may well be you have a different drive, but even if its max spec is for, say, 70°C, you'd still be running on the high side. Considering its vintage, it can hardly be called premature to have a PB G4's drive go bad, but high temperatures certainly didn't do it any good. I'll mention as an aside that I've found external hard drives do run cooler than internal laptop drives, and I assume this has to do with their more spacious enclosures, better ventilation from larger fans, and the absence of heat-producing processors and graphics cards.

It is indeed a good sign that the drive is running quietly, but only in the sense that it's a sign of impending doom when you do hear something. On the three occasions I've heard "the click of death" come from a hard drive, only once before it died did I have enough time to pull off the files that hadn't been included in my most recent backup.

* (It's worth noting that in any case, even for a problem which is apparently resolved on the first attempt, it's essential to continue repeating the repair process until the response indicates not just that the drive was successfully repaired, but that no problems were found. The system is unable to disclose an incomplete repair process, something that is not uncommon, for the good reason that one issue may need to be resolved before another one emerges from hiding and can be dealt with.

Although ambrose has some facts OK, the operating temp is mis-guided, as he presents it.
There's a large difference between the ambient temp, and the temp measured in actual use from the hard drive itself.
If you are booted to ANOTHER hard drive, especially an external, then the internal would normally be infrequently active (if at all) and would not generate much more heat than the rest of the case. When booted to that internal drive, the typical hard drive would be almost continually active, and could get quite warm as a result, depending on brand, model, and age to some degree.
Heat, by itself, has been shown to NOT be a major factor in the lifetime of a hard drive. Google discovered this when evaluating its own server farm for various factors, including heat.

Finally, you repeat a repair process through Disk Utility on the assumption that it continues to approach a repair. One of the ways to see that, is to note if the same items are presented as errors each time.
My plan is to stop if the same errors are presented after running the same repair 3 times. If each repair reports different errors each time, then I continue with more repairs.
It appears that ambrose has not worked in a repair shop. I have probably heard many of the large variety of "death noises" (each manufacturer's drives have distinctive "death noises", which may be clicks, or buzzes, or "musical" tones, or even something close to a siren.) None are good news about the future of that particular hard drive.
And, of course, a hard drive can fail without audible changes to warn the user.

Hi ambrose,

You have again passed along many good points and I appreciate it.

<<As for Disk Warrior's announcement of a successful directory rebuild, the replacement directory exists only in RAM until it is written to disk, which DW is unable to do because of the underlying invalid node error.>>

I understand about the replacement directory's temporary home in RAM and wish that DW gave the option to replace that directory to a different drive. That way, I think I could have done a clean and complete move to my external backup 500 GB Passport drive which has plenty of space available and then, perhaps and somehow, moved that data onto my unmountable internal drive. Even if a scavenge mode run of DW produces a more complete rebuild, I don't understand how that scavenged rebuild would be able to transition to the internal drive when the plain rebuild wasn't able to do that.

<<Considering its vintage, it can hardly be called premature to have a PB G4's drive go bad...>>

It's doubtful that my 120 GB internal hard drive is the original PowerBook drive since those original drives were 80 GB. The internal drive with Leopard installed came as part of a purchase of a replacement PowerBook. The external drive running my PowerBook now is my original drive from my previous PowerBook and it's been running like a champ (albeit very low on available space now). If you're interested in more details about that and haven't already seen it, I posted more details about the saga of my internal drive and the related system problems in my first thread on the Forums here:
http://hintsforums.macworld.com/showthread.php?t=168624

You could make a disk image (DMG file) of the troubled drive onto your external drive and then use DiskWarrior to repair that disk image (it can work with DMG files).

To make a disk image copy of the troubled drive, you can use the command-line program 'ddrescue' - see: http://hintsforums.macworld.com/show...7&postcount=11

Hi DeltaMac,

<<My plan is to stop if the same errors are presented after running the same repair 3 times. If each repair reports different errors each time, then I continue with more repairs.>>

This makes good sense and I did notice that the second, more detailed fsck command produced results that seemed to be progressing with 2 attempts. However, I stopped running the Terminal commands after the words of caution about potential effect on internal hd spinning activity. Like everything else in life, I guess it boils down to risk v. benefit.

<<There's a large difference between the ambient temp, and the temp measured in actual use from the hard drive itself.>>

I run Temperature Monitor, so there are obviously numerous temp sensors all over the place. My point in mentioning temperature was just to present another factor in this problematic equation which may or may not be telling of something meaningful about the troubled internal drive. The observation that's stuck out to me is the relative temp reading difference between the 2 drives and, even taking into account the differential factors relative to internal v. external, the original Tiger 80 GB "Macintosh HD" seemed to run somewhat cooler as an internal drive than the replacement Leopard 120 GB "Mac HD 10.5" (aka "the devil") ever did.

<<(each manufacturer's drives have distinctive "death noises", which may be clicks, or buzzes, or "musical" tones, or even something close to a siren.)>>

Have you ever come across an intermittent high-frequency beep (like something you'd hear coming out of a digital wristwatch alarm)? I recall hearing some of those beeps coming from the replacement PowerBook early on when everything was running well, but I had never heard a sound like that come out of a Mac before...ever. The sound appeared to be originating from the mid-upper left side area of the keyboard and not from the vicinity of the hard drive. I don't mean to veer off-topic, but I'm curious since I've used Macs for many years and have never heard a beep before from any other machine, including my previously departed PowerBook.

PS...I finally got my hands on my last DW report in lieu of running DW again, so I'll post that shortly. Also, still hoping for a good Terminal command to try to mount or force mount the internal drive. Unfortunately, the mount man didn't help me much there and a cut and paste option would be wonderful.

Here's a few examples of the sorts of sounds that you might hear from a failing hard drive: http://datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php

There's only two devices that might produce some kind of noise in that upper left area:
The left fan, or the speaker.

The last model of PowerBook G4 (with a DL DVD burner) did come from Apple with a 120GB. Of course, you can check on the data label (inside the battery compartment) which will tell you what the original hardware configuration was...

Hi DeltaMac

<<Here's a few examples of the sorts of sounds that you might hear from a failing hard drive: http://datacent.com/hard_drive_sounds.php>>

Well, that's just plain fascinating...seriously. I enjoyed listening to a few of the examples (as did the dog) and I will go back and listen to them all later. Thanks.

<<There's only two devices that might produce some kind of noise in that upper left area:
The left fan, or the speaker.>>

Ok, that's a bit reassuring that the strange beeps probably aren't hd-related. I thought of a better example of the beep...it was like a high-pitched, lower volume version of the sound you get when you press the numbers on a microwave oven keypad. The beeps almost sounded like they were related to the processor trying to do something, but they were very intermittent. All I know is that when the internal drive was mounted and working, the beeps were there and with my external drive running the show, the beeps are pretty much gone.

<<The last model of PowerBook G4 (with a DL DVD burner) did come from Apple with a 120GB>>

I did not know that, so maybe the funky internal drive is the original. The PB doesn't look like it has ever been opened up, so maybe that's a good explanation. I'll check the battery compartment later.

Thanks for the info....

Hi hayne,

Thanks for directing me to your post about creating a .dmg from Terminal. That may offer me a good workaround for the problematic internal drive and DW. I subsequently looked at Disk Utility and that does give me the option of creating an image of the internal, unmounted drive and depositing that to my larger external drive. Plus, I'd probably feel more comfortable doing that with DU (unless Terminal would offer a better alternative for reasons which I'm not aware of).

1. Can you or someone else advise about whether I would choose the option of compressed, read/write, or DVD/CD master? I think it would probably be read/write, but I'm really not sure.

2. Would the .dmg go directly into my external drive as is, or would a partition have to be created.

3. So, I'm guessing that once a .dmg of the internal drive is on my external drive, Disk Warrior would give me the option of just rebuilding that disk image on the external drive and not the entire contents of the backup drive. Is that right?

If disk space is a consideration for any of this, here's that info:

1. 120 GB internal HD (Mac HD 10.5): approximately 85 GB used as I remember (no way for me to check in its unmounted state)
2. 80 GB external HD (Macintosh HD): just under 3 GB available now and this is my startup disk running Tiger
3. 500 GB external HD (My Passport Studio): 323 GB available and this drive contains my only backup contents of the Mac HD 10.5 and the Macintosh HD and is not currently set up to be bootable.

1) I've never done it with Disk Utility, but I'd go for whatever seems the most generic. Definitely not compressed or anything related to DVD/CD.

2) A DMG file is just a file and will be of the size of your source drive (total size not the size that is used). DiskWarrior will work on that DMG file - ignoring the rest of the files on your external drive. But I would be a bit nervous about doing *anything* on the disk that contained my only backup.

Hi hayne,

Thanks very much for getting back to me...

<<1) I've never done it with Disk Utility, but I'd go for whatever seems the most generic. Definitely not compressed or anything related to DVD/CD.>>

By "generic", I'm assuming you mean the most simple and basic approach. If so, DU looks very straightforward to me. I'd just choose read/write with no encryption and with my 500 GB external drive as the destination, then click "save".

<<2) A DMG file is just a file and will be of the size of your source drive (total size not the size that is used). DiskWarrior will work on that DMG file - ignoring the rest of the files on your external drive. But I would be a bit nervous about doing *anything* on the disk that contained my only backup.>>

I eventually figured out that, by going to the DW menu under File, I am given the option of "Rebuild Disk Image", so I answered my question #3 above and am good to go there. As far as my backup drive is concerned, I have been very hesitant and cautious about doing anything unnecessarily interruptive or invasive there. That is why I have been trying to approach a solution to my problem of trying to mount and repair my internal drive via some possible Terminal/fsck options.

I've still not been able to find a good fsck command to try to mount or force mount the internal drive, so any ideas there would be appreciated. I've read through "man mount" and it is like trying to read Greek for me. I've also read through the Forums here and elsewhere online and can't seem to determine what command(s) might possibly be the best to try for my situation.

Some weirdness in the mounting department is that, when I've started my PowerBook with the Tiger system disk and the "C" key and then gone to Disk Utility, the internal drive (Mac HD 10.5) shows up as a mounted volume, with the correct hd icon, etc., but cannot be repaired. However, booted from my external drive, the internal drive shows up as not mounted and won't mount. Other than what I've mentioned about Owners Enabled switching to "No" at some point, that just seems bizarre.

Before I move forward with the DMG process with DW, I'll post below the last DW results which Trevor had requested and, perhaps, someone will be able to pick up something there that would help guide me forward. Thank you again.

The requested report from my run of DiskWarrior last week is provided below. Any input related to the results would be greatly appreciated, especially in terms of: 1) whether running DW in scavenge mode might produce a more favorable outcome for the possibility of replacement onto my internal hard drive (either directly working with the existing internal drive or by creating a DMG of that drive on my external backup drive) and 2) if the results below would indicate that the "invalid node structure" error I've been getting via repair attempts is resolved by DW.

I did discuss the DW results with a Tech person at Alsoft who indicated the problem may not actually be a mechanical malfunction and said that it might be possible to manually move the folders onto the internal hard drive. I can't do that because the hard drive won't mount. Alternatively, the possibility was mentioned to try the Restore process in DU with the rebuilt DW disk as the source (which, I think, is what would be done using the DMG process that was mentioned above).

Thank you very much to anyone for taking a look and possibly being able to offer any words of wisdom...


DiskWarrior has successfully built a new directory for the disk named "Mac HD 10.5." The new directory cannot replace the original directory because of a disk malfunction.

A disk malfunction is a failure of or damage to any mechanical component of the disk device, or any component connected to it. The malfunction will likely worsen. Therefore, recovering your files from the DiskWarrior Preview as quickly as possible is essential.

It is highly recommended that you backup all of your data from the preview disk.

The original directory is damaged and it was necessary to scavenge the directory to find file and folder data.

Some files that had been lost or thrown away may have been recovered.

Comparison of the original and replacement directories could not be performed because the original directory was too severely damaged. It is recommended that you preview the replacement directory.

• All errors in the directory structure such as tree depth, header node, map nodes, node size, node counts, node links, indexes and more have been repaired.

• 18 files had to be recovered. The files may have been lost or thrown away. You must inspect the files to determine the extent of any damage. You must also determine whether the files should be discarded.

• 1 file had a directory entry with an incorrect text encoding value that was repaired.

• 2 files had a duplicate name that was repaired.

• 6 files had an oversized thread that was repaired.

• 2,495 missing folders had to be recreated.

• 294 folders had a duplicate name that was repaired.

• 1 folder had an oversized thread that was repaired.

• 5,868 folders had an incorrect item count that was repaired.

• 25 folders had a directory entry with an incorrect custom icon flag that was repaired.

• 590 files/folders had to be moved to the "Rescued Items" folder.

• Incorrect values in the Volume Information were repaired.

• Critical values in the Volume Information were incorrect and were repaired.

Disk Information:

Files: 587,154

Folders: 159,858

Free Space: 27.51 GB

Format: Mac OS Extended

Block Size: 4 K

Disk Sectors: 234,179,424

Media: ST9120821A

Time: 2/11/13 10:20:23 AM

Ah, well, your hard drive is failing (or the directory structure, or the hard drive blocks, etc)
You can copy out to another drive, directly from DW's Preview disk, which will give you access to files that you don't have backed up somewhere else...

2 items (among others) from the DW log interest me:
and
Lots of "lost" files there.
Whatever happened to cause that, likely also resulted in your "mounting" problem.
Finally: Didn't you already say that your important files are ALREADY backed up?

With the information as presented by Disk Warrior, I think you can now safely say that the hard drive mounting problem that you have is due to hardware problems in the hard drive. That MAY be soft-repairable, with a re-partition (but that might not help, either)
I'll go out on a limb here, and say that you won't have any other remedy, and your (BEST, maybe only) choice is to replace your hard drive with a good one.

Hi DeltaMac,

Thank you very much for the diagnosis you provided from my DW report and for your related comments and questions. I apologize for the delay in responding...I was called out of town over the past week and was without my PowerBook.

I think it's now clear that there is no solution for my problem via Terminal/fsck commands which is what this thread was originally about. Still, I could really use some guidance regarding next steps, with the objective being to try anything (short of replacing the internal drive) that will help to get Leopard up and running on my internal drive and to preserve my applications, settings, etc. Rather than start (or find) another thread to address a system reinstall on my troubled, unmounted internal drive, I'll address your input and leave a few questions here for now. So, first off, related to the comments you left...

<<Ah, well, your hard drive is failing (or the directory structure, or the hard drive blocks, etc>>

Well, I hope the problem is software-related. This reminds me of a chicken/egg thing...did a bad drive cause the system to fail or did a system malfunction (or bad install from the retail store) cause a problem with the hardware)? I don't know what the answer is, but I think this matters because it will be far less costly to initially try a software-related remedy, short of replacing the internal drive. There has been no hardware test that has indicated a hardware problem. Also, there are currently no noises whatsoever from the internal drive. By the way, I listened to all of the failing hd sound examples you linked me to and none of the samples with beeps sounded anything like the ones I had heard on my PowerBook when the Leopard internal drive was working as the startup drive.

<<You can copy out to another drive, directly from DW's Preview disk...>>

I'm not sure how your suggestion of "copy out to another drive" would be done, but if I wanted to try a data/directory replacement from a DW Preview Disk moved as a .dmg to my external drive, would I use the "Restore" function from DU or is there another way? I obviously can't try to drag and copy anything since my internal drive is unmounted and not accessible.

<<Lots of "lost" files there>>

Having never had to use DW before, I have no reference point as to the load of folders/files that ended up in "Rescued/Recovered Items", but it sounds like you think I had a lot. If DW can do a replacement, what does it do with those rescued folders? Do the correct folders just simply get replaced, in which case the rescued items could then be deleted?

<<Didn't you already say that your important files are ALREADY backed up?>>

Yes, that was the first thing I did after I purchased my WD external drive and before I had a problem. I think I had copied most everything to my Passport Studio external backup. In hindsight, and because I didn't know any better, the mistake I made was not immediately making that external drive bootable by creating a separate partition with the Leopard system.

<<That MAY be soft-repairable, with a re-partition (but that might not help, either)>>

Well, assuming the problem is soft-repairable, is a re-partition the only option? I think that means I would have to erase the entire internal hard drive. I also think I had mentioned previously that I don't understand fully how to partition, having never done that before. Not that it's a difficult thing to do, but I still would like to maintain the integrity of the data on the internal drive if at all possible. I think I understand, that to create a new partition on a drive, the other contents on that drive get erased in the process. Is that true? Also, when I start my PowerBook from the Tiger system disk, the unmounted internal drive shows up with the appropriate icon as being mounted. Wouldn't that indicate that the internal drive problem is more software-related than a hardware failure?

<<...your (BEST, maybe only) choice is to replace your hard drive with a good one.>>

Well, that's not a comforting thought after all of the money I've dished out on the replacement PowerBook loaded with Leopard, DiskWarrior, and the WD external backup drive. Truly, other than my
Poltergeist internal drive being tucked safely inside the PowerBook and not dangling like my two externals, I care far more about not being to access Leopard. I'm limping along here, without being able to access and do many things that are tied to Leopard. Anyway...

Since my replacement Leopard system disk(s) should arrive soon from Apple, just a few questions related to possible solutions short of getting a new internal drive right now:

1) Did the DW report you reviewed indicate that the DW rebuild solved the "invalid node structure" problem indicated by my runs of DU and the Terminal fsck commands?

2) Since I will soon have Leopard system disks to work with, do you think the DW approach would even be worth a try with a DMG of the internal drive going onto the Passport backup and then being copied to the internal drive?

3) If the DW rebuilt preview disk can't be moved to the current, unmounted internal drive, can a DW rebuilt disk be copied to an erased and re-partitioned hard drive? I'm guessing only the rebuilt and repaired directories get replaced and not the entire system, so that probably wouldn't work, right?

4) Do you think an archive and install or complete reinstall of Leopard might be effective and/or worth a try before replacing the internal drive (and instead of trying to do anything with DW)?

5) Is it possible to do an archive and install on an unmountable internal drive or is a complete erase, re-partition, and install the only option in the case where a drive is in an unmounted state?

6) When I ordered the replacement system disks from Apple, the tech person wasn't sure if the disks would have Leopard 10.5.1 or 10.5.6. Either way, since my internal drive is currently loaded with Leopard 10.5.8 from the retail store's server and everything appears to be there from what I can see on the DW preview, is an archive and install procedure possible from an earlier version of Leopard? Meaning...could I try an archive and install from 10.5.1/10.5.6 and then apply Apple's 10.5.8 combo updater?

In summary, it seems that solving my internal drive problem will involve:

1. No remedy via Terminal/fsck.
2. Possible remedy from DW rebuilt DMG being moved from the external drive to the internal drive (although probably not worth a try).
3. Potential remedy from an archive and install from the Leopard system disk.
4. More likely remedy from erase/re-partition of internal drive and fresh install of Leopard if the internal drive is not in a state of serious hardware failure.
5. Definite remedy from replacement of internal drive and totally clean install of Leopard.

Apologies for all of the questions, but in the many years I've been working on Macs, I have never had a major problem or had to do a system (re)install, worked with Terminal/fsck, or done anything with partitioning a disk. I really appreciate any input because I am trying to be very careful and don't want to make a bad situation any worse. Thank you...

1) (DW solved?) Yes, the problem is solved - however, DW cannot replace the directory, so the issue remains. "solved", but not fixed. That's - not good...
2,3,4 and possibly 5) DW has the Preview Image - which SHOULD mount. That image is not on your unmounted hard drive, but is a virtual image, with the repaired directory - and DW can't use that to replace the existing directory on your hard drive (probably for the same hardware fault that it won't allow it to mount.)
You COULD, with the Preview Image, drag copy from the preview, to ANOTHER hard drive, any files that will copy. That copy process can sometimes take a long time. I have seen some take several days to finish.
6) The last full installer for Leopard is 10.5.6. I would expect that is what you will get. The ONLY method that you can use, and try to maintain your existing files on your hard drive - is the Archive & Install option. That will take your installed version back to 10.5.6 (or an older version, depending on the version of the OS X installer.), and - yes, you would just reinstall the 10.5.8 combined installer (plus running Software Update to get all the other updates that would be available)

Some folks have never had a hard drive fail, but I'm pretty sure (without actually touching it) that this is one.
My feeling is, that you will not fix the hard drive.
The main reason that I say that, is that DW reports

Hi DeltaMac,

<<The ONLY method that you can use, and try to maintain your existing files on your hard drive - is the Archive & Install option.>>

Well, I've been busy the past few days with data transfer and have some updated information which I've taken to another thread since my issues are no longer Terminal/fsck-related. I hope you'll be able to stop by and take a look. Your input has been extremely helpful and very much appreciated. There may be other options based upon what I've been able to do...or not.

<<Some folks have never had a hard drive fail, but I'm pretty sure (without actually touching it) that this is one.>>

How would you diagnose or determine a hard drive failure by touching it? Do you mean that you would actually remove a hard drive and do some specific testing or look for something visually?

I don't mean "touching" so there's fingerprints, eh?
I mean that your symptoms sound like those typical of a very questionable hard drive, and all I can do is say that because of those symptoms, I expect you are unlikely to succeed until you get a different hard drive installed. I might be wrong, as a full erase (with a one-pass write zeroes to the hard drive format) may get the hard drive working properly again (or won't help :D )