Mac wont startup / broken cd drive

I have been having some issues with my mac book pro. It does not start up all the time and give me the message "you need to reastart your computer hold down the power button for several seconds or press the restart button " but the odd thing is it doesnt always happen and I am sometimes able to get on. seems that after I go into single user mode and input some info that I have no clue what it means (found it online) it will then work several hours later but only untill I shut it down.

I backed up my information I had just in case and I have tryed everything I can think of under the sun and I have been searching the web nonstop looking for answers but nothing seems to work.

I would like to try and reinstall my OS however my cd drive is broke.
Is there a way to fix this issue without a wroking cd drive?

You can't really do much without a working CD\DVD drive. You really need to either replace the drive or buy an external drive to use instead.

As for your startup problem, it could be related to a failing hard drive or something else, however, without a working CD\DVD drive, there's no way to run hardware tests.

Regards.

What text did you enter in single user mode? that might provide a clue about the problem. Won't negate the need for an optical drive the next time you need to do hardware testing though.

i used teh text fsck -f and it seemed to get me back on for a short time however last night i did the same thing and now i am back and have been back since with no problems yet. i am still worried through

Having to constantly use FSCK to "fix" the drive usually means a failing drive as noted above. Make a backup of everything as soon as you can and seriously consider replacing the optical drive or at least purchase an external.

Regards.