How to Change the Icon of Removable Drives

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Does your USB flash drive have a boring, generic icon that you would like to change? Do you want the new icon to show on whatever computer you use, so registry editing is not an option? Using an Autorun file is your solution.

Steps

1. 1
   Create your icon, or find one online. A good size is 34 pixels square.

   
   
2. 2
   Open Notepad to create your Autorun file.
3. 3
   Type [AutoRun] in the first line.
4. 4
   Name your drive in the second line: label=Name
5. 5
   Specify your icon in the third line: ICON=your-icon-file.ico. If you wanted to call your drive "My USB Drive" with an icon named "myusbdrive.ico"
6. 6
   Click File, then Save As. Change the file type to "All" and name it AUTORUN.inf
7. 7
   Your autorun.inf file would look like this:
   • [AutoRun]
     label=My USB Drive
     ICON=myusbdrive.ico
8. 8
   Note:
   • Dpending on the label you choose, and the location of your icon file, youmay need to wrap the label and folder names in quotes (") to handle long filenames.
   • It has been reported that on some systems your ".INF" file extension may need to be capitalized in order to work.
9. 9
   Ensure that both your autorun.inf and any .ico files are in the ROOT of your removable drive, instead of a folder, unless you have specified the correct folder for the icon in your .inf file.

   
   

Video

Tips

• This also works on internal hard drives, cd-rs, and any other drives that support Autorun.
• This will not work on a drive where Autorun is turned off.
• You will need to remove the drive, then plug it back in to see the changes.
• This is a great way to get past the "11 Character Drive Name" restriction.
• If the AUTORUN.inf and icon files are an eyesore, you can hide them (right click, click Properties, check the "Hidden" box).

Warnings

• Make sure you save the autorun file as .inf instead of the default .txt.
• Ensure that the icon is saved in the root of the drive, with the autorun file.
• This does not work on floppy drives, because they have no Autorun feature.

Things You'll Need

• A removable drive
• An icon for your drive
• A text editor, such as Notepad/Notepad++

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