According to several reports, a rare error of Local Disk drive partitions having a red circle with an X in their icons. The cause of this error is still unknown, but it usually means that the file folder or disk or contents are not refreshing, updating or syncing. There are several methods which help in troubleshooting this error. The main thing to note here is that it can occur on local disks, disks mapped on a network as well as files and folders.

Red X on folders, files or Hard Drive in Windows 10

Red X on folders, files or Hard Drive in Windows 10

If you see the red X icon overlay then following these suggestions may help you. If it is happening for desktop icons, simply refreshing the desktop could help:

  1. Reinstall your Cloud service app
  2. Disconnect the drive in case of Mapped drives
  3. Update your computer and BIOS.
  4. Run CHKDSK.
  5. Clear icon cache.
  6. Disable Hard disk Write Protect.
  7. Scan with an Antivirus.
  8. If it is just OneDrive?

1] Reinstall your Cloud service app

If you have OneDrive, Dropbox, etc. installed on your computer, then it might be the one causing this issue.

You need to either update these software or if that doesn’t help, uninstall it and fresh-install its latest version.

2] Disconnect the drive in case of Mapped drives

Open the Windows File Explorer.

On the top ribbon, select the down arrow and select Disconnect network drive.

It will open a new dialog box which will list the letters allocated to partitions mapped will be listed.

Select OK.

And now all the Mapped drives will be disconnected.

You can then Map it back if there is a need.

3] Update your computer and BIOS

You need to update your copy of Windows 10 and then update your computer’s BIOS.

Reboot your computer. This has proven to have fixed this error for many.

4] Run CHKDSK

We will use the command line to run ChkDsk. Run CMD as an Administrator and execute the following command:

chkdsk <Drive Letter>: /f /r /x /b

It will either start checking for errors and fixing them, or it will show up a message saying –

Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process, Would you like the schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N)

Hit Y for scheduling the Disk Check the next time the system restarts.

Reboot your computer and let the chkdsk run.

See if this has helped.

5] Clear icon cache

To clear the Icon cache, open the Windows Task Manager.

Scroll down to Windows Explorer. Right-click on the listing and select End Task.

Run the Windows Command Prompt as an Admin.

Execute the following commands in the given order:

cd /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local
attrib –h IconCache.db
del IconCache.db
start explorer

Your icon cache will now clear and rebuilt now.

6] Disable Hard disk Write Protect

Some folks have reported that they had to disable Write Protection. See if that helps you.

7] Scan with an Antivirus

Sometimes viruses can damage a file and result in the errors like this too.

It is advised that you perform a deep, full scan on your computer using the antivirus installed on your computer.

8] If it is just OneDrive?

If this error is only visible on the OneDrive icon and in the contents of the OneDrive folder, there might be chances that there is an issue with the OneDrive syncing. This post shows how to fix this & other OneDrive errors.