I am unable to boot my mac in El Capitan and Single User mode

Question

I am unable to boot El Capitan.

When I turn on the computer it seems to load fine for a while, but then this screen shows up:

When I try to boot into Single User mode, it stops loading at this point:

Then minutes later, this happens:

I've tried to repair the HD using Internet Recovery, the log says the partition seems fine:

I have also reset the PRAM several times.

The error I get when trying to boot into Single User mode seems pretty crazy. Is it likely that I'm gonna have to reinstall the OS?

Answer 1

Yes. Single user mode is the most basic thing your OS can do. If that fails, you either have a major hardware problem or the OS needs to be reinstalled.

Most people make a backup and then attempt a reinstall. If you can't reinstall the OS, that pins the problem on the hardware pretty squarely. If it works, you can safely assume the software just needed to be reinstalled.