Customize drive icons
If you have a number of USB thumb drives or external hard disks, you may find that you lose track of which one is currently plugged in. Initially, I created volume labels to give each one a descriptive label, but I’ve found the following technique to be slightly more elegant. By creating your own AUTORUN.INF file, you can assign a decent label and an icon to make the device easier to see in the Windows Explorer.
Make sure the external storage volume or thumb drive has been inserted or attached. Grab an image somewhere, crop it to a decent size and save it as an icon. IRFanView is a great utility for saving images in different formats, cropping and cutting. Open Notepad and copy the following text into it, then adapt the label to your needs:
[autorun]
label=My external drive – 20GB
icon=autorun.ico
Save the file to the root directory of the relevant thumb drive or external storage media as AUTORUN.INF. Finally, rename the icon file to AUTORUN.ICO and save it in the root directory of the thumb drive or external storage media.
If all has gone according to plan, the next time you insert the device Windows Explorer will show your icon and the description:
The same is obviously possible when creating a CD or DVD – just prepare the icon and autorun files beforehand and place them in the root directory of the compilation you intend burning.
