Rename Drive Label/Change Drive Icon

[Guest]

I have a HP Media Center Computer with one of those 13-in-1 digital media
card readers. Right now, my drives read G: H: I: and J: Instead, I'd like
them to say 'Compact Flash' 'Secure Digital/MMC' 'Memory Stick Pro' etc. I
would also like to change the icon to show which type of card is read by each
drive. This would be a major convenience when I am transferring photos/files
to and from storage cards. I was able to do all of these things in Windows
XP using an application called 'PHM Plus.' I am currently running Windows
Vista Ultimate, and this application does not work. Does anyone know of an
application or perhaps a registry tweak which will do what I need? (Rename
and change icons of drive labels)

Thanks

 

[Guest]

You probably bought your PC new with Home Premium, and he manufacturer
customized it. My PC came with Media Center 2005, and I did a clean install
of Vista Ultimate.

 

[Dave]

Mine was a year old Gateway with XP MC 2005 on it. I upgraded it to Vista
Home Premium.
The drivers for the card reader are from MS.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, GQ.

This sounds like a job for...Disk Management! ;^)

DM has been a part of every Windows since Win2K - and every version of
Vista. Perhaps the shortest path to it is to right-click Computer, then
Manage | Disk Management. (But I prefer to just Run diskmgmt.msc. DM is so
useful that I have it on my Quick Launch.)

Disk Management manages hard drives - plus just about anything else than can
be assigned a "drive" letter. My card reader is much simpler than yours: a
SanDisk that reads only SD cards. But I also have DVD drives, a few USB
thumb drives and a digital camera that show up in DM's list of Volumes.

In DM, just right-click on G:, then click Properties. The name (if G: has
been assigned one) should be highlighted. Type in "Compact Flash" or
whatever you choose, then OK out.

DM also allows you to choose your own "drive" letters for each device. So
long as you don't plug in any other device that conflicts with your setting,
Vista will remember each letter until you change it. Several other optional
settings are available, too, but I'll let you explore DM to find those. I
don't think we can change Vista's choice of icons, though.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail beta in Vista Ultimate x64)