Gray screen on boot - boot up commands not working

Morning All,

Firstly - let me say, yes i have looked and searched threads on having a grey screen and i have still not found the answer i need.

ok - here goes

My 2007 Macbook 15" recently froze while browsing the net, i did a forced shutdown.

Then when i turned the Macbook back on it had just the grey screen (no apple logo etc)

I CANNOT use any of the boot up commands (safe boot, SUM, verbose etc)

I did manage to use the Install disk to get Disk Utilities up and running however is had the following error

Checking HFS Volume
Cannot repair 1 HFS volume

or something similar.

I can get into SUM when i have the install disk in however when i try to fsck the hard disk it only checks for errors on the Install CD (with no errors obviously) - not the hard drive. For some reason it seems the hard drive does not get recognised (even though it appears in disk utility)

Is there any way i can either use SUM or Terminal to check for errors on the hard drive - bearing in mind i can only access these when i have the install CD in.

Any help would be much appreciated - i'm on this all day so i can answer questions etc

Many Thanks

Chris

Sounds like the drive may have gone south.

I'd start here.

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-operating-system/93819-basic-os-x-mac-troubleshooting.html

You'll want to start at #7, which looks like you've done that one already.

There may be some terminal folks on later in the day - I'm more of a gui guy.

Thanks - however i have tried running fsck but it only checks the install CD not the hard drive.

What does resetting the firmware do? Will it affect things saved on hard drive?

I basically have lots of photos which i can't bear to lose (yes i know i should have backed up) i'd be happy to archive and install but don't want to risk wiping HD.

Resetting NVRAM does nothing to the hard drive - this is related to the system board in case it is the problem.

Disk Utility has reported a fatal drive error. DiskWarrior 4.1.1 may fix the problem but at US$99 cheaper to go with a new drive.