HDDs icons with big red X

Paultx · 03 Mar 2021

All of my HDDs icons, except for the one with the system, have changed to this:

I searched and found that it could be related to OneDrive or Dropbox, but I never installed the latter, so my guess is the culprit might be the former.

Here in the forum I found a thread about the OneDrive case, and there the X in the icon is inside a small red circle, while in my case it's only the red X, which reminds me of network connection problems back in Windows 7 times.

However, since I only noticed it yesterday, I have to tell you that last week I installed two programs that have something to do with icons and HDDs: Stardock IconPackager 4 and Hard Disk Sentinel Standard 5.61.

When I saw the icons issue I uninstalled both, but TNA. Although Hard Disk Sentinel reported that the D: and E: drives have problems and the F: drive is OK, the latter also shows that red X.

And when browsing the Start menu I found that the Edge icon is now different:

Any ideas what is that issue and how to fix it? TIA.

Windows 10 Pro 20H2 19042.844

Ghot · 03 Mar 2021

@Paultx

It would help us a lot if you included a screen shot of Disk management.

Paultx · 03 Mar 2021

Ghot said:

@Paultx

It would help us a lot if you included a screen shot of Disk management.

There you are.
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Ghot · 03 Mar 2021

Paultx said:

There you are.
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Two things you can try...

1. Rebuild the icon cache Rebuild Icon Cache in Windows 10

2.

As a first troubleshooting step can you try to unlink your computer from OneDrive and then relink it?

To do that click on the cloud icon in the taskbar on the lower right near your clock. The activity center window will pop up and on the lower right of that window click on the word Moore

This will bring up a menu and in that menu click on settings. Then go to the account tab of settings and choose unlink this PC.

Next reboot the computer and then search for OneDrive in the windows search bar and click on it to open it and log back in

sygnus21 · 03 Mar 2021

Paultx said:

All of my HDDs icons, except for the one with the system, have changed to this:

Drives D, E, and F look like mapped drives going by the drive icons. However mapped drives usually don't (maybe I'm wrong?) show up in Device Manager as drives D, E, and F clearly are in yours, unless they are part of the physical system.

Agree with Ghot on Rebuild the icon cache Rebuilding Icon Cache.

Paultx · 04 Mar 2021

Rebuilding the icon cache was the first thing I tried. Actually, I did that before starting this thread. I also tried SFC /scannow and DISM — both TNA. Even Icaros didn't fix it.

As to the OneDrive suggestion, unfortunately it made things worse.

First I unlinked my PC from OneDrive. Before I restarted the system I checked the desktop and found that the icons changed and showed the apps and folder icons with some sort of system default overlay.
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Then I restarted the system and the issue was still there.

But now I have the executables shortcuts icons shown on the desktop as a blank icon. The exception is the IrfanView shortcut icon, which, like the other icons, shows a sort of blank overlay (it seems to be related to the arrow overlay). PDF files and internet shortcuts also show that. Images and files shortcuts icons (like TXT) are normal.
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Desktop now

The taskbar too shows a blank icon for most shortcuts.
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This new thing can be seen elsewhere on the system, but with some details. When Explorer is set to show Small icons, List, and Details, those new issues appear. The other viewing options show the icons normally.
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Explorer in Details view

Explorer in Large icons view

Well, I guess the problem is with icons only, not related to HDDs and stuff.

dalchina · 04 Mar 2021

D,E,F seem to have icons resembling network drives, but don't appear to be such from Disk Management.

Suggest you remove the two potentially faulty drives and see if that affects the 3rd.

Although Hard Disk Sentinel reported that the D: and E: drives have problems

- you should take that seriously- it's an excellent program

Found this, but it's a different build
1809 is back... with mapped network drives bugs - Windows 10 - Spiceworks
- and no screenshot to show what sort of red X is referred to.

Doesn't look like a Onedrive-related symbol.

Paultx · 04 Mar 2021

@dalchina

I have no network here, they are all internal drives.

As to the faulty HDDs, I'm still with them because I'm copying stuff I need to keep, a lot of GBs...

dalchina · 04 Mar 2021

Hope you've got good backups and have replacements on order, depending on the problems reported.

I wish you good luck with your issue.

Paultx · 04 Mar 2021

I found the solution! Well, sort of...

The problem was IconPackager. I decided to install it again, but got error messages saying I couldn't modify, repair or uninstall it. Which means its previous uninstallation wasn't complete and left... leftovers.
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I searched about that error 2343 and found this forum post where a guy suggested using the Program Install and Uninstall troubleshooter from Microsoft.

The result was that I could install IconPackager again and apply one of its packages.

Now the desktop icons are almost all (but not all) back to normal. And the HDDs icons too—without the big red X!
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The only snag is that the Microsoft Store and Mail taskbar icons are now black. And the desktop folders icons are "blank".
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Well, at least it's the lesser of two evils!

But now I have to check more on IconPackager to know why it does such a mess.

Thank you, guys. Case solved.