External drive icon gone

vegaspat · Feb 25, 2010

I am having an issue with the ICON on my EXTERNAL Western Digital drive. The original icon seemed to have disappeared when I installed an EXTERNAL hard using a docking station.

Right now all my drives are being shown in My Computer and working correctly. My C:\ drive shows the Windows logo as always and the internal drive that I have in the docking station is showing up with an ICON as all of the other drives such as the ones for SDcards, etc. are. The CD ROM has its normal icon and my External drive has got this icon with a turned down corner and some small colored pics or something similar in it.Sounds stupid but don't know how else to describe it.

I was going to follow the instructions in your Tutorial -Icon Cache-Rebuild. But right off I can not find IconCache.db

I don't know if this tutorial is for this type of icon or just system and program icons.

I've tried to find away to even change the icon that has suddenly appeared but have had no luck so far.

Am I searching for an answer that is not going to be able to handle this thing?

Thanks.

Brink · Feb 25, 2010

Hello Vegaspat,

You might see if this tutorial may be able to help you restore your drive icon. Be sure to check for a autorun.inf file as descibed in the yellow TIP box at the top of the tutorial below.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/111388-drive-icon-change.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

vegaspat · Feb 25, 2010

I've checked several times and can NOT find the autorun.inf file.

The Tutorial you suggested said that it was " not to fix a missing or changed drive icon that just happened out of the blue, but to replace it with one you want instead of the default one".

My WD MyBook External drive icon just went missing for what reason I just can't figure out.

I don't know if it had to do with my formatting my new internal hard drive which I inserted in a docking station.

I tried the Tutorial on How to Rebuild the Icon Cache in Vista but could not even find the IconCache.

Sounds like a losing battle to me?

I even uninstalled the driver, rebooted and plugged the drive back in, hoping that would do something. It didn't!!

Brink · Feb 25, 2010

Vegaspat,

Go ahead and try the tutorial to replace it with the same default icon for that drive to see if it will show you afterwards.

vegaspat · Feb 26, 2010

I printed off and followed the steps exactly in Method one. But when I got to the part about typing in the PATH, I realized that the Western Digital icon would not even be there. I have no idea on my hard drive where it would be.

I suppose that if that generic thing bugs me so much I will just go back and indicate which icon in the Windows icon folder I want to attach to it.

Good idea?

Brink · Feb 26, 2010

Sure, you can use one of the icons included in Vista if you would like to. The one below is: C:\Windows\System32\imageres.dll,-36 if you like that one, or any other numbered icon you may like instead.

vegaspat · Feb 27, 2010

Brink,

I got to thinking about this whole thing and kept wondering why I didn't have some sort of disc that I would have needed for the installation of this drive.

I could NOT find anything so I went to the Western Digital site and after looking around there it appeared to be some software that was on the drive when I bought it.

Well, it's not on the drive now and I'm thinking that at some time I deleted that software.

I'm still checking around and will go over that drive content again. If none of that works out I will attach one of the Windows icons using your instructions.

Thanks for all your time and help.

Brink · Feb 27, 2010

You're welcome. Please let us know how it turns out for you.

vegaspat · Feb 27, 2010

Okay, I quit.

I followed your instructions and tried to install one of Windows icons per the instructions and instead of working I now have that generic looking thing on my other newly installed internal drive/docking station. I even connected the WD to my new laptop and it had the same icon.

The software that I installed was for backups and it was a try and purchase deal. I remember now that I did remove that in the beginning.

So I decided this is just not worth driving myself and others nuts so I am just going to ignore it.

I haven't installed any software lately and am wondering if one of my Registry Backups would do anything.

Brink · Feb 27, 2010

If this was recent, you can try doing a system restore using a restore point dated before this happened instead to try and fix this.

vegaspat · Feb 27, 2010

Would you believe that I went from one problem to another one?

I've just been searching the web trying to find out why, when I went to IMPORT a Registry backup, I received an error message that the Registry could not be imported
because some files were in use or something along that line. After starting my search I find this is rather common. I even tried it in Safe Mode.

What good is it to backup your Registry if you can't utilize the backup?

Last year when after many years of System Restore being almost useless, I "shrank" the size of space that Restore used and was also going back to the default tonight after the Registry fiasco when I noticed that my speakers weren't working. Got that resolved and was going to shut the whole mess down and tackle it again tomorrow.

And how is your day going? <G>

Brink · Feb 27, 2010

You can use Method Two in OPTION TWO of the tutorial to restore the backup REG file instead to bypass the "Files in use" issue.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/212412-registry-backup-restore.html

vegaspat · Mar 1, 2010

Before I could even get to anything else I noticed something strange in My Computer.

I'm pretty sure that there used to show a D:\ which was where my Recovery partition resided. The first thing I noticed was that there was a Drive (L): and it says CD DRIVE.
I also thought that my DVD/CD drive used to say (D:E)

Now, under Hard Disk Drives I have C,E (Internal) and K (External)

Then my DVD Drive says D and I have 5 icons that say Removable Disk for the SD cards, etc.

When I click on the one that says CD Drive (L) I get a message that "refers to a location that is unavailable. It could be on a hard drive and so on and so on.

When I went into the Registry and made those previous changes trying to recover my External drive icon could it have thrown things out of whack?

If I go back over the instructions and remover those keys I added will everything revert to its original state?

If my drive letters are messed up that doesn't mean I've lost my Recovery options does it?

I just wish I'd learn to leave things alone because I continue to create more problems for myself.

Thanks for your time.

Brink · Mar 1, 2010

Yes, removing the the added entries from the tutorial will undo what you did in the tutorial. However, it will not remove a drive. Usually the recovery partition will not have a drive letter and show up in the Computer window though. It usually only shows up in Disk Management instead.

Since it is a external drive, be sure to try METHOD TWO to restore it's icon though.

vegaspat · Mar 2, 2010

Okay, I just VERY carefully completed Method Two with no results. Before trying it I managed to reverse Method One and got rid of Drive L.

I did everything in Method Two and since I had no idea where the MY Book, WD icon was I used #26 in the Windows System folder. From your screen shot,26 appeared to be a generic hard drive icon. I rebooted and still have the same two old ugly icons on both of my external drives.

But they both work so I guess I'll call it quits.

Thanks for all your patience and help. I constantly seem to have screwy problems that never get solved.

I previously used one of your other Tutorials concerning System Restore. If I can't find what I'm looking for I will have to post another thread. Bet you can't wait. <G>

One additional thing.

I got to checking and on MY Vista system, the icon files are in the Shell32.dll folder.

When I was editing the Registry, I had printed off one of your screen shots and used that when selecting the icon. I had even counted off the icons as you noted and that's why I chose # 26.

But #26 in the folder that comes up for me, the icon is a monitor. This makes no difference at this point but guess I should have checked that out first.

External drive icon gone

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