What does Yellow Exclamation on Disk Drives Mean?

When you open This PC, one or more of your partitions may have a yellow exclamation point. You wonder if a problem with the hard drive causes this or how to remove the exclamation point icon.

yellow exclamation on drives

Cause

The yellow exclamation point reminds you that BitLocker protection is suspended on that volume. The yellow exclamation icon does not indicate any hardware fault.

Resolution

Open Control Panel → System and Security → BitLocker Drive Encryption.

yellow exclamation on drives - resume bitlocker or disable bitlocker

In this example, the F: drive is protected by BitLocker but is currently suspended. To remove the yellow exclamation point icon, you may resume BitLocker or turn it off for that volume.

Option 1: Resume BitLocker protection on that volume

In the BitLocker settings page in the Control Panel, click “Resume protection“.

This removes the yellow exclamation point for that volume.

yellow exclamation on drives

Using PowerShell (alternate method)

Alternatively, you can run the following command in PowerShell (admin) to resume BitLocker for the F: drive.

Resume-BitLocker -MountPoint "F:"

yellow exclamation on drives - resume bitlocker using powershell




Option 2: Turn off BitLocker protection on that volume

In the BitLocker settings page in the Control Panel, click “Turn off BitLocker“.

This removes the yellow exclamation point (as well as the lock icon) by turning off BitLocker for that volume.

yellow exclamation on drives - fixed

Using PowerShell (alternate method)

Alternatively, you can run the following command in PowerShell (admin) to disable BitLocker for the F: drive.

Disable-BitLocker -MountPoint "F:"

yellow exclamation on drives - disable bitlocker using powershell


References

Suspend BitLocker protection for non-Microsoft software updates – Windows Client | Microsoft Learn

Remove BitLocker Encryption from a drive via Windows 10 or 11 Home Edition


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Ramesh Srinivasan is passionate about Microsoft technologies and he has been a consecutive ten-time recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional award in the Windows Shell/Desktop Experience category, from 2003 to 2012. He loves to troubleshoot and write about Windows. Ramesh founded Winhelponline.com in 2005.

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