Q: I have to go in to single-user mode to boot in OS X.

I already reset my NVRAM in the past but with no luck of fixing the issue. I will try it again.

First I did resetting the system management controller. I shut down the computer, unplug the power cord, wait 15 seconds, attach the power cords, wait 5 seconds, then press power button. Same thing happened, when the progress bar got to 3/4 of the way and then the computer shut down.

Second I tried to reset my NVRAM. I followed all the steps, after hearing the chime for the second time and letting go of Command-Option-P-R. The same thing happened as described above, but this time the chime was a lot louder. I had my volume down a bit. The computer shut down at 3/4 of the progress bar.

When I ran "distutil list" in Terminal on Recovery Mode, it was shocking. It went from /dev/disk0 all the way to /dev/disk16. I now remember a long time ago I was trying to make a bootable linux USB drive and accidentally clicked on the wrong drive. But I never had a problem booting up, until now. I guessed I clicked on the SSD or HDD.

The list is too long for me to type out right now so I am going to post an imgur.com link for the picture. I also ran distutil repairDisk diskN1 and N2. But the result will also be in the imgur.com link. (A bit too lazy to type right now.)

Here is the imgur link: http://imgur.com/a/QrKo3

When I did diskutil repairDisk disk0, this came up: Repairing the partition map might erase disk0s1, proceed? (y/N). I pressed N because I don't know if that is the right thing to do.

When I ran diskutil repairDisk disk 2, this came up: Unable to repair this whole disk: The target disk is too small for this operation (-69771)

Shouldn't I worry about all the other /dev/disks?

I am kinda shaking right now.

For windows I only have games, I don't have a back-up but it's not necessary for me because I don't have that many.

And for OS X is everything, family photos, videos, projects and more. And yes I do have a backup of that on an external hard drive.

So this started happening in December 2015. Back then I was mostly using Windows for videogames. I remember a few months before December 2015 that I accidentally selected the wrong image for making a bootable USB Linux. But this problem did not happen. It just started happening after a few months I made the bootable USB mistake.

So are all the /dev/disks normal things that I don't need to worry about? It has been like a month and have been searching so much but can't find any solutions. Sometimes I couldn't sleep at night, couldn't do my work right because my mind was always on how I can fix this. Sorry for expressing my feelings.

Thanks for understanding.

I ran repair disk on disk0 and it finished it. Everything seems to be OK.

I ran repair disk on disk2 and this came up again: Unable to repair this whole disk: The target disk is too small for this operation.

The computer still shuts down when the progress bar gets to 3/4. And I am using "/sbin/mount -uw /" and "exit" to get in OS X.

Loner T wrote:

 

Allan Eckert wrote:

 

But it always safer to make a backup first just in case.

Yes, it is always better to have a backup. I assume OP has Time Machine and it has not dropped any files.

I don't have a Time Machine, I just copy files I want to backup on my external hard drive.

Quoting Loner T 2 previous suggestion.

1. I don't have any third-party software of those kinds.

2. Will do in a few.

3. I already tried doing this but it came up with an error: An error occurred while preparing the installation. Try running this application again. This is where I used terminal to change the date. I researched it a bit and that is what solved most people's problem but it did not solve mine.