How to Change Your USB Flash Drive Icons

I recently bought a 160GB Wester Digital portable hard drive and had it partitioned but wanted to create custom icons for each drive for personalization and also for fun. Here’s a detailed step by step instruction on how to do it.

Step by Step Instruction:

1. Create an icon you want for your drive. You can select any picture you want and convert it to an icon here.

2. Copy paste it to the root directory of your flash drive and go to the Explorer options: Tools > Folder Options. Click View and Show Hidden Files and Folders.

3. Right click the autorun.inf and uncheck “read only” property and open it. If there is none at the moment, open up notepad and create one. Save it as autorun.inf to the root directory of your portable flash drive.

4. Write the code inside autorun.inf and save it:
[autorun]
icon = .\linux.ico
label=Linux

Of course, you have to change the linux.ico to the filename of your icon file. And also the label Linux to the name you want for the drive.

5. Save all your changes and go back to Folder options to unshow hidden files so that your files will not be seen. Remove usb drive and plug it in again. You will see your new icon in the startup of your flash drive.

Congratulations. You’ve just customized your flash drive icon and label.

If you like the short how-to, please consider subscribing to my feeds. I know this is pretty basic, so most tech savy people know it, but for newbies, this is a cool usb hack.

What do you think? Like my linux drive?

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19 Responsesto “How to Change Your USB Flash Drive Icons”

1. Charles says:

   June 9, 2008 at 1:52 am

   nice one Mc.
2. Rome says:

   June 9, 2008 at 11:52 pm

   ganyan lang pla yan haha loser talga ako..

   Rome – romeuy.com
3. Lhurey says:

   June 19, 2008 at 5:08 pm

   Now i know..thanks man..
4. bat di gana? says:

   July 30, 2008 at 8:30 pm

   not working…the icon is unknown…what should i do..?
5. bat di gana? says:

   July 30, 2008 at 8:31 pm

   pls send me an a-mail ganex_99@yahoo.com
6. mahe says:

   August 20, 2008 at 6:11 am

   does anyone know how to do this on mac osx?
7. lefnuj says:

   November 14, 2008 at 9:46 am

   thanks!
8. log70 says:

   January 14, 2009 at 7:19 am

   can anyone help???? its not working for me.
9. Vanhelmont says:

   June 13, 2009 at 3:28 pm

   [autorun]
   icon = .\linux.ico
   label=Linux

   save this as autorun.inf

   if your icon is in another folder:
   icons(another folder)

   [autorun]
   icon = .\icons\linux.ico
   label=Linux
10. Vanhelmont says:

    June 13, 2009 at 3:29 pm

    [autorun]
    icon = .\linux.ico
    label=Linux

    save this as autorun.inf

    if your icon is in another folder:
    icons(another folder)

    [autorun]
    icon = .\icons\linux.ico
    label=Linux

    ^^
11. wazalac18 says:

    July 12, 2009 at 1:49 pm

    what should i do if my avast antivirus detects it as a malware?
12. Jack says:

    August 1, 2009 at 5:55 pm

    Hi

    I also want to change my USB Drive icon

    Finally i can find my result in this site

    thanks a lots for all of the developer

    JACK
13. kalliel says:

    November 6, 2009 at 8:49 pm

    why is the icon return to its default eventhough i don’t change it?
14. Ajit D says:

    December 30, 2009 at 8:32 pm

    I also know this trick but all the antivirus software treat autorun.inf as a virus, even though I know that this file has been created by me and there is no HARM but it still avast says “Virus in autorun.inf”…How to get rid off it…
15. Hotels Sydney says:

    January 12, 2010 at 5:47 pm

    To change the icon, right click and choose “properties”, then on the “shortcut” tab, choose “Change Icon”.
16. Ekontd says:

    April 19, 2010 at 1:06 am

    Thank You For This Info

    Good Luck
17. asquare25 says:

    June 5, 2010 at 4:57 pm

    Thanks for the solution … my problem solved.
18. Freeman Mieszala says:

    June 7, 2010 at 8:10 pm

    Thank you for this blog, I was looking for Avast Antivirus on Yahoo and found this webpage.
19. jeff says:

    August 3, 2010 at 10:28 am

    why does it is being detect as virus in other computers?