Sometimes I long for the good old days when a person would bring me a broken Mac, I would run any disk repair utility and, more than 99 per cent of the time, the Mac would performed like new again and everyone was happy.
Now OS X is not a bad thing but it is a different thing. As a result, all the companies that make disk repair tools had to recreate their software from scratch. The learning curve has been a nightmare for these companies and many early adopters of their products as well.
Hopefully, that is all in the past. The major utility software companies are now in the final throes of shipping working repair tools, although I caution you not to use older versions of these if you are running the latest version of the OS or G5 processor machines.
I cannot necessarily recommend one as the be-all and end-all of repair tools because I have had them all lose, fail to recognise or even damage files.
That said, my procedure for repairing a damaged disk is as follows:
First, Run Disk Warrior, then Norton Disk Doctor, then TechTool.2. Read (and print out) all of their reports before letting them change anything. (I am always amazed that they each find and miss different things).