Broken Optical Drive and HFS Volume Needs Repair

First off, I am sorry if this is a repost, I looked through the first 5 forum pages and found nothing that came close to my problem.

So, my optical drive has been out-of-commission for 3-4 years, and, at first, this drove me nuts but I just got used to it. BUT!, after running the "Verify Disk" function on my laptop, it is now apparent that I have a slight problem - 1 HFS volume checked Volume needs repair. I can't fix it running the discs because... (DING!)...my optical drive does not read CD's or DVD's.

Though, when 'Verifying Disk Permissions', the optical drive does its mechanical eject function. And, when I insert a disc, it will accept it, and eject it when I hold down the eject button. Is it perhaps the laser that is not reading the disc?

Running MAC OSX 10.4.11 2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo 2GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

What do I do?

Follow these directions from Apple to repair the hard drive in Single User Mode:

Boot your machine in single user mode (hold down Command S).

At the command-line prompt type:

/sbin/fsck -fy

Press Return. fsck will go through five "phases" and then return information about your disk's use and fragmentation. Once it finishes, it'll display this message if no issue is found:

** The volume (name_of_volume) appears to be OK

If fsck found issues and has altered, repaired, or fixed anything, it will display this message:

***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****

Important: If this message appears, repeat the fsck command until fsck tells you that your volume appears to be OK (first-pass repairs may uncover additional issues, so this is a normal thing to do).

When fsck reports that your volume is OK, type
reboot at the prompt and then press Return.

Let us know if this works for you. You should, however, buy an external optical drive or replace the defective one.