Can't remove, rename or copy old OneDrive folder (0x8007016B)

Question

I recently did a reset of my Windows 10 computer.

I have two drives connected:

• C: an SSD, and
• D: two regular HDDs forming a dynamic mirrored drive within Windows.

On the D: drive I had my old onedrive folder. d:\OneDrive after the reinstallation of Windows 10 it automatically made the OneDrive appear here: c:\users\xxx\Onedrive

I now want to remove my old onedrive folder on my D: drive. The problem is that windows won't allow me to delete, rename, copy or move that old folder. Giving me this error:

Error 0x8007018B: Access to the cloud file is denied.

Since it is a mirrored drive I can't easily but a portable unix-OS to modify it directly, so now I do not know what to do. That error message is not very documented on the web.

Answer 1

I was able to get rid of my old OneDrive folder by opening Powershell(admin). Then going to parent directory and using the command

Remove-Item "OneDrive folder name" -Recurse -Force

To open Powershell, press the Window key and X

Answer 2

You need to disable first “Files-On-Demand” feature in OneDrive:

1. Right-click OneDrive in the System Tray Click the menu icon -> Settings -> Settings tab -> “Files-On-Demand” section -> disable the “Save space and download files as you use them” option
2. Now run Remove-Item .\Your_Folder_Name\ -Force

If still doesn't work and you face the error:

Remove-Item : There is a mismatch between the tag specified in the request and the tag present in the reparse point

then do this:

1. run Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth
2. run Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth
3. run Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
4. and now on an elevated prompt run cmd /c rmdir /s /q C:\Users\Your_User_Name\Your_Folder_Name

PowerShell cannot handle broken symlink, use the hammer, use CMD.