Drive Icon Missing | Drive Icon Changed In Windows

Trouble:

Recently one of our readers reported that his drive icon is not visible for a particular drive. This kind of problem was once reported earlier by one of our readers Kavi.

Kavi himself solved this problem and sent sent us the fix before we started working on the problem. So today I am going to share this fix with you. Thanks Kavi !

In the snapshot below you can see that icon for C drive is missing (C:).

drive-icon-missing

We will share the simple registry hack to fix this issue.

Fix:

The fix is really simple, follow the below steps:

1. Go to Start > Run , type "regedit" and press enter, this will open registry editor.

2. Locate the following registry Key :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorere\DriveIcons\C\DefaultIcon

Click to enlarge the image below, here you will see that the registry entry at this location is either set to 0 or some in-valid value.

drive-icon-set-to-zero-or-invalid-value

3. Double Click on the entry and type the below value in it:

C:\windows\System32\SHELL32.dll,8

and press ok, as you can see in image below:

put-the-drive-icon-path

The corrected key will look as below:

correctted-drive-icon-path

Its Done! Now just open My Computer and you will see the icon properly as below:

drive-icon-corrected

The above example was for C drive, for any other drive for example F drive, replace C in the registry key mentioned in step 2 above with F. Please share your comments and suggestion through form below.

Comments

  1. Respected Abhishek / Rohit.
    Kavi is here. It is a matter of honor to register one’s name in your website.
    And I found my name here. I’m a big fan of this site, and have been sharing my problems and
    Questions. It will be my pleasure if I share any FIX with you. I have been and will share.
    Thanking you.

  2. Deyaa,
    One technique for assigning a drive-specific icon uses a file named Autorun.inf in the root directory of that drive. Launch Notepad and enter [autorun] on the first line. Enter ICON= on the second line, followed by the full pathname of the icon-holding file, a comma, and the icon index. It might look like this:

    [autorun]

    ICON=C:WINDOWSSYSTEMSHELL32.DLL,8

    Save the file as “C:autorun.inf” (you need the quotes to prevent Notepad from appending the .txt extension). Now restart the computer. When you open Windows Explorer, the drive SHOULD display its icon.

    If still problem is there, then ask, we will find some another solution.

  3. @Deeya

    There is no problem if the entry is not there in your registry. It means that default icon will be displayed always.

  4. when i am playing windows media player and subsequently a new explorer,”isvbr.net/?t=3&embedded=false” is opened.
    please tell me the reason and remedy via registry.

  5. I uninstalled a virtual drive and it left some keys in the registry. And because of these leftover keys, one of my drive icons was missing. With your suggestion, I was able to restore my missing drive icon. Thanks!

  6. Hi Admin/Kavi,

    I could not find the drive icon folder in the explorer folder in reg edit….please provide me a solution for this problem and also when i double click the drive, search window is getting opened…please help me……..

  7. Hi all,

    I could not find the folder Explorere in my registry. I did find a folder named Explorer but it did not contain the DriveIcons folder.
    I have the Autorun files in my WD drive. The icon still will not show up even after safely removing the drive and rebooting my computer. The drive works correctly, it just has the “no icon” icon in my computer. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

    Thanks for your help.

  8. drive icons is no appear in registry editior ….so how can change drive icon ,,please tell

  9. If driveIcon folder not found in registry. Create the required keys. It works perfectly…

  10. My drive icons were missing and your registry hack worked perfectly for me. Thank you!

  11. I kinda have the same problem here with windows 7, it was with just one partition and now it’s with all of them. that registry key doesn’t exits
    any suggestions?

  12. I have used the bat file, edited regedit manually but my C: drive icon is still missing. My other drives have icons but bot the C: drive rather annoying.

  13. Is olved thi sproblem as under.,
    there was no REGKEY named as DriveIcone, so i created one by right clicking onthe explorere folder and pasted the REG value as C:\windows\System32\SHELL32.dll,8

    after eboot my drive icon was again visible and later on i chnaged this from defalut to another flower shaped ico file stored on my hard.

  14. dude its wonderful …long time before my computer shows this problem ,but i don’t know to fix it… now the instruction ‘s help me to solve the problem…
    thanks…

  15. Hi,
    My “D” Drive icon is missing, as mentioned in Explorer does not contain the DriveIcons folder.
    there is no drive icon file , instead I find Hide desk top icon, in that folder I find hide my computer icons, please help ………………
    Any suggestions would be appreciated.

    Mohan

  16. i follow ur instruction .. it worked for me..TQ kavi

    [autorun]

    ICON=C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\SHELL32.DLL,8

    Save the file as “C:\autorun.inf” (you need the quotes to prevent Notepad from appending the .txt extension). Now restart the computer. When you open Windows Explorer, the drive SHOULD display its icon.

  17. I am facing the same problem. But on windows 7 Enterprise. My actual trouble is all my desktop icons are appearing as in the Drive Icon Missing Pic. There is no DriveIcon key under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

  18. even i had the same problem from few days
    i solved it
    it is very simple
    just follow the steps
    1.open the dive with the missing drive icon.
    2.delete all the *.jpg files present in the drive.
    3.next rename the drive .
    4.the drive icon is back to normal.

  19. i use windows 7 but i couldn’t find the path you described here, please how can i get it work on windows 7?????

  20. thanks helped. but my pc still has unpleasant pauses ony when i open the usb disks
    i cleaned 18 malwares. and all these registries were edited by the malware.
    need some help. pauses everywhere

  21. Hi everyone:
    Just by setting C: fixed all my hard drives, partitions problem.
    This post has been helpful. Thnx…

  22. Thanks a ton man!!!u r a life saver,went to so many website downloading stupid icon changer,nothing worked,was about to format my whole computer to solve this issue when i decided to do some more surfing!!finally!came here and it worked like a charm!!plus its relatively easy,thanks my man!!

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