macsnow leopard
I ran a disk check on my hard disk and the Disk Utility tells me "Error: This disk needs to be repaired. Start up your computer with another disk (such as your Mac OS X installation disc), and then use Disk Utility to repair this disk.".
The last physical disk I had was the Leopard -> Snow Leopard upgrade and I now do not know where that disk is.
Is there a way that I can create a bootable CD, DVD or flash drive, boot the computer from that and repair the hard disk?
I have Snow Leopard 10.6.8.
There should be a point—after you choose the language, but before it starts trying to install the OS—where you see a Utilities option in the menu bar.
Do you get to this point? If so, what happens when you choose Disk Utility?
There's more information about this at Using Disk Utility to Repair a Disk (University of Wisconsin).
OK, now it's a different question, so here's my different answer:
If repairing your main partition is what you want to accomplish, why not just run Disk Utility off the 10.5 system disk?
You will need a USB drive (8GB) and access to another Mac. You can use any external drive instead of a USB drive, but be aware that you'll have to format the drive and you'll loose any content on it.
On the bottom: click 'Options' and choose 'GUID Partition Table' and click 'OK', then 'Apply'. The USB drive will be partitioned and reformated.
When that is done select the 'Restore' Tab
Click 'Restore'
Once the restore is done eject the USB drive, put it in your Mac and reboot. Hold 'Option' while your Mac is booting, this will get you to the boot selection list. Choose your "Mac OS X Install DVD" and you're ready to go.
Best Answer
To boot the computer, you need an already-formatted disk, which could be a DVD, a USB drive, or another hard drive.
If you do not already have one of these (and do not have another Mac that you can use) then your options are fairly limited:
Buy Snow Leopard on DVD. You can get it from Apple for $30, free shipping, but it won't ship for 3-5 days.
Buy DiskWarrior [$100] which is probably your best bet if you want to try to save the current hard drive.
Buy Lion on a USB drive $70 from Apple. Note that this is a terrible solution, IMO, because you will not be able to download Lion from the Mac App Store nor will you be able to use Lion's "Recovery Partition" (which, if you had it on your Mac, would most likely have solved your problem).
The rest of this answer is strictly opinion.
Personally I think your best option is #2 and #1.
DiskWarrior is an essential tool for trying to recover from hard drive errors. If your drive is having problems, I would not trust it for very long. Copy an essential files to another drive and then run DiskWarrior. Even if DiskWarrior is able to correct its errors, I would be sure to start making regular backups using either SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner.
The problem is that if DiskWarrior finds problems that cannot be fixed, then you are going to need to replace the hard drive and reinstall Mac OS X… which means that you are going to have to buy Snow Leopard on DVD (assuming that you don't have a friend who can make or loan you a copy).
The $70 USB stick from Apple is a terrible deal. If you want to move to Lion, buy your own USB drive, find a friend with a Mac, ask them if you can use it to buy Lion from the Mac App Store, and make your own Lion USB drive using one of the many how-tos posted online, such as this one from TUAW.com.