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I accidentally pulled an NTFS hard drive out of my Mac OS X Mavericks machine several times and realized that I accidentally created multiple entries of many different names in my /Volumes/ folder. Now I have storage_1, storage_2, storage_3, passport, etc. in my /Volumes/ folder.

I tried a few solutions to unmount the drives (they didn't show up as unmountable however since they technically don't exist as real drive volumes). I tried a few quick rm filename -r and rmdir filename commands to no avail.

The error I get when I try to delete ANYTHING in Finder, however, is

The operation can’t be completed because one or more required items can’t be found.

(Error code -43).

Obviously I Google'd the answer to this problem and was able to fix it initially by fixing my hard drive permissions. However, this fix didn't work for the /Volumes/ folder, just every other folder. Now, nothing works.

Any suggestions?

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  • My symptoms: - Error -43 when trying to delete the file it self. - Deleting the parent dir showed "file in use.." when emptying trash. - The get info displayed "Unknown permissions". - Ran Disk Utility and ran -> First Aid and found some errors regarded Zeroed out sectored. Tried: - PRAM/SMB reset also no effect. - Delete commands in terminal also in recovery mode - no effect. The solution: - Backup to time machine & exclude that particular file's parent dir. - Reboot in recovery, using disk utility, erase the problem drive completely, - Restore from Time machine
    – SagarScript
    Oct 15, 2019 at 15:50
  • I had a similar issue but when using Ventura. Turns out I had to disable System Integrity Protection which is available in recovery mode. developer.apple.com/documentation/security/…
    – Daniel
    Apr 1 at 14:46

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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A simple shut down, then start, of OS X should automatically remove debris from

/Volumes

If you like: disconnect/eject any removable media before the start.

Or simply leave the media in place, and restart.

There may be other approaches to dealing with volume debris whilst the OS is running but in my experience, it's often better to restart.

Also recommended

Error -43 may truly indicate a file system inconsistency, so use Recovery OS Disk Utility to verify affected file systems.

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  • Unfortunately I had tried the shutdown, restart method to no avail. However, upon later inspection, I realized I was using the command rm drive_name -r, instead of rm -r drive_name. Problem solved. Such simple stupid mistakes on my part.
    – Blairg23
    Jul 16, 2014 at 20:03
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    Relaunching Finder solved the issue for me.
    – Rugmangathan
    Jul 1, 2016 at 5:35
  • also relaunching finder solved
    – levent kaya
    Feb 28, 2019 at 11:19
  • simply ejecting and reconnecting the external hdd solved the issue
    – ssi-anik
    Dec 21, 2020 at 15:18
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You can search Force Quit & submit it. Then choose Finder and Relauch it. Finally move to trash item 's icon which you want remove

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  • I'm not sure how this will help.
    – JMY1000
    Mar 23, 2016 at 3:25
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    Why not? Did you not try it? (By "force quit and submit it", we just mean quit and restart the finder; at least on my system Command-Q works for the Finder, too. No need to "force quit" and after relaunching, things were normal. (Although I have occasionally encountered strange Finder issues that required a reboot for the situation to resolve.) At least when I encountered this bizarre behavior (on my start-up drive, with documents in my Downloads directory, quitting and re-launching the Finder app did, indeed, resolve the situation.
    – Lowell Montgomery
    Apr 12, 2016 at 15:29
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    This helped me fixing the issue without rebooting my system. But the answer could be improved to just right-click Finder and hit "relaunch".
    – Overbryd
    Sep 14, 2016 at 14:18
  • Thanks for this! This fixed an issue on macOS Sierra where one of the user accounts couldn't delete files. I opened Activity Monitor, selected Finder in the list, and chose "Force Quit". When I clicked Finder again in the Dock to start it anew, I could delete files.
    – Henrik N
    Sep 30, 2016 at 19:28
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I had previously gotten the Error 43 on my Mac. So Here's the fix: Error Code 43 Mac.

To fix, what you need to do is basically two steps

  1. Reset the PRAM. From a powered off state, hold ⌘ Cmd ⌥ Option P R until you hear the startup chimes 3 times, then release and allow your system to boot normally.

  2. (Optional) Delete the locked files. In Terminal, execute the following command: chflags -R nouchg. Then open your Trash, select all the item (⌘ Cmd A), drag everything to the Terminal window, then press Return ⏎. Empty your Trash

If you follow these steps, it should solve the problem.

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  • 1
    This should be the accepted answer. The 1) option did it form me. Restart your mac, while holding the specified buttons
    – Maksim Luzik
    Sep 1, 2017 at 13:49

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