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I have 3 folders that I am unable to remove. 2 have no folders underneath them and one looks like a reference to time capsule with many folders, but no content.
Move to trash is greyed out
MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.15
Trying to run it in Recovery mode would not work either, disks were mounted but still was unable to remove
Fix was this.
disabled SIP
booted into Single User Mode
/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw /
rm -rf on both directories
now they are gone
Trying to run it in Recovery mode would not work either, disks were mounted but still was unable to remove
Fix was this.
disabled SIP
booted into Single User Mode
/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw /
rm -rf on both directories
now they are gone
They are stored at the root level of the hard drive which is not modifiable by anyone, even root.
You would have to boot into Single-User mode and remove them via the Terminal, or you may be able to disable System Integrity Protection (SIP), remove the folders, then re-enable SIP.
The TimeMachine folder is a macOS thing, but I don't think it should be on the root level of the drive. I don't see it on my Mini at all, but I have seen it on my MacBook Pro. Could just be the local snapshot thing for laptops not directly connected to a backup drive. I don't have my MBP to check. I would leave it alone, for now.
The other folders I have no idea about.
If you had folders stored at the root level of the startup drive before upgrading to Catalina, they would have been moved to /Users/Shared/Relocated Items/. It's possible the empty folders were left behind.
ok so disabled sip and attempted to delete, no change
ran in terminal
MacBook-Pro-2015:CDI, llc 20 ldeffinbaugh$ rm -rf /CDI\,\ llc\ 20
rm: /CDI, llc 20/.fseventsd: Permission denied
rm: /CDI, llc 20: Read-only file system
MacBook-Pro-2015:CDI, llc 20 ldeffinbaugh$ rm -rf /CDI\,\ llc\ 14
rm: /CDI, llc 14/.fseventsd: Permission denied
rm: /CDI, llc 14: Read-only file system
MacBook-Pro-2015:CDI, llc 20 ldeffinbaugh$
Thoughts?
As the error told you, the startup drive is mounted read-only in Catalina. No amount of disabling SIP will allow you to delete from a read-only volume. Even if there was a super-duper-root user account, you couldn't remove those files while booted into Catalina.
You would need to boot into Recovery, mount the drive in Disk Utility if it is encrypted, then use Terminal (Utilities menu) to remove them.
Items in the root directory are protected. Use Get Info to determine their individual permissions. You may have to make changes in order remove them. This may include disabling the SIP temporarily.
zero hd folders in Macintosh HD I cannot remove
