How to create custom icons for flash drives or USB drives

Posted on December 16, 2007 at 7:56 am

You probably already know how to create custom icons for your local C drive or for your CD drive, but did you know there is an easy way to create custom icons for USB flash drives also? So whenever you plug in your USB stick into any computer, it’ll show up with your custom icon instead of the basic removable disk icon that Windows uses.

Here’s how you can create a custom flash drive icon:

First you’ll need to either find a .ico file on your computer that you would like to use or you will need to create your own. If you want to see all of the different icons that are already on your computer, simply perform a search in Windows for *.ICO.

If you do not like any of the icons already stored on your computer, you can create your own custom .ico file very easily by going to a site called FavIcon from Pics. It’s super easy to use, simply click Browse and select the file you want to convert into a fav icon and click Generate FavIcon.ico.

Go ahead and copy this icon file to the root of your USB flash drive and rename it to autorun.ico. Next, you will need to create a text file in Notepad called autorun.inf and place it in the root of the USB flash drive with the following text inside:

[autorun]
icon=autorun.ico

As you can see, the file just tells Windows the name of the icon file it wants to use as the drive icon. You can actually change the name of the icon file if you want to anything you like as long as you put that same name in the second line of the of autorun.inf file.

That’s it! Now whenever your stick your USB drive into your computer or any computer for that matter, you’ll see your custom icon! You can also try this technique for other USB devices, such as cameras, MP3 players, and more! Pretty neat! Enjoy!

[tags]custom flash drive icon, custom usb drive icon, create custom usb drive icon, .ico, favicons, fav icons, create favicons[/tags]

» Filed Under Computer Tips

Comments

7 Responses to “How to create custom icons for flash drives or USB drives”

Nirmal said on : December 18th, 2007 at 5:48 am

I had written the same post long time back.
But I feel you dont need to make a favicon, there are lots of free download icons available.

ahmad muttaqin said on : January 16th, 2008 at 12:18 am

hye there…i dont really understand how to create an icon for my usb disk..can you plz send me the instructions nd an example to my email? i really appreciate that..thanks a lot…

irwana said on : April 26th, 2008 at 11:29 am

hye there…i dont really understand how to create an icon for my usb disk..can you plz send me the instructions nd an example to my email? i really appreciate that..thanks a lot…

Allison said on : July 21st, 2009 at 10:26 am

Thanks for the detailed info, but I still can’t figure out how to create an icon for my USB stick. I made the Favicon, but I’m not sure where to save it (what is the “root” of the USB drive??). Any information or advice you (or anyone) can give will be helpful. Thanks in advance.

biggles1000 said on : October 1st, 2009 at 10:16 am

how do you save to the root of the flash drive? Thanks

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December 16th, 2007 at 10:00 am
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April 7th, 2009 at 5:15 am