Strange Files After Cloning
 

Yesterday I cloned several Macs during the afternoon. On a couple machines there is at least one odd file titled "dev" that contains nothing; the file is not visible at the same place on the cloned Macs. And when I tried to trash the file I was told that I "don't have the privilege of doing so" or words to that effect.

My question: what are these "orphan" folders and can they be removed?

No, this folder is critical/important, so please don't remove it. The OS, unfortunately, doesn't always give us the "proper" hide state when you're booted from the volume. But, the Finder will hide it when you start up from the copy...

What does that mean exactly? The folder appears in the Finder window when I examine what was cloned to the external drive(s).

If you set the external drive as the startup drive and start from it, /dev won't be shown. (It's the folder where Unix devices are stored -- important stuff.)