MacOS – Disk utility detecting error in single user mode, but not when disk utility is opened via recovery mode

disk-utilityhard drivemacosrecovery

I verified the integrity of my Macintosh HD (MacBook Pro 13" 2012, OS X Yosemite) with Disk Utility when I was logged in as a user and it reported this problem:

Invalid volume free block count
…
Error: This disk needs to be repaired

Then a window popped open and said that I had to repair the disk with the Disk Utility in Recovery Mode (cmd+R immediately after restarting the Mac). But when I do this, it doesn't find an error, so when you press the 'repair disk' and you check the disk in single mode once again, the error isn't changed.

Update: What I see, when I open User Single Mode:

User Single Mode Screenshot

Update 2: The solution worked, disk utility also doesn't generate an error anymore:
Solution worked

Best Answer

Here's a beginner's guide to the command line. The single user mode is also like looking in as root - the first user that owns all of the computer historically from a unix perspective.

the $ indicates a prompt where you, the human user can type commands. The system is telling you how to prepare the drive for running the repair command.

Type the following text - the same as the first line you are told to from the screen:

/usr/sbin/fsck -fy

Note, that every space, every punctuation is exact and changing any one item may run an entirely different command. If the fsck command has any errors, you can and should run it again with the same command up to three times in a row or more in some rare cases.

To get out of that screen, you could halt the Mac or type exit to resume the normal start up process.

Apple documents the root user and fsck in these two articles if you are curious or wish to learn more:

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