Icons and names for USB flash drives incorrect

On my windows 8.1 PC whenever I plug in any USB pen drive the thumbnail for the device is always an image of a Sandisk Cruzer Titanium as is the identity when I go to the safely remove hardware toolbar.

The Sandisk probably was the first pen drive I plugged into the machine when new but surely it should be picking up details of subsequent devices or at the very least showing generic details.

How can I rectify this?

Cheers

Baz

This tool may be helpful
View any installed/connected USB device on your system

Hi,

I tried that and I tried removing all devices of the name Sandisk Cruzer but it didn't help. However I have noticed that the problem seems to be with storage devices plugged into my USB hub, that all get identified as a Sandisk Cruzer, yet when I plug them directly into to computer they get identified correctly.

I have tried uninstalling and re-installing the hub but no joy.

When you say 'uninstalling and re-installing the hub' do you mean full uninstall of it's drivers as well? The hub may be caching device names. Try identifying the exact hub (unplug it while in Device Manager, then plug it back in). Once you have the correct driver identified, run through the driver uninstall, remove the hub but do not plug it back in. Reboot and then plug in the hub. It should reinstall the drivers. See if it now identifies whatever the first device you plug in.

If it does, it still may not fix your problem. The hub will report the first actual device and may never update each time a different device is plugged in.

That USB has it's own id, if you reformat it to blank name it should show only as a regular one.

I did a load of experimenting on this last night and have a bit more info

Firstly the problem only seems to be affecting 2 ports of my 4 port USB hub.
When I plug any pen drive in to the affected ports the icon displayed is that of a Sandisk USB Cruzer (which I have used in the past), also on the taskbar the pen drive appears to be identified as being attached to a Sandisk USB Cruzer rather than being a device in its own right eg.

Sandisk Cruzer Ultimate
- Eject 32GB Drive

whereas normally you'd get

Eject DT Ultimate G3
- 32GB Drive

Also when ejecting the drive does not disappear from My computer but is no longer exploreable (until unplugging/replugging).

I have tried unistalling the HUB from device manager as well as uninstalling portable devices and drives.

Something somewhere has somehow associated itself with these 2 ports and I am getting really confused as to what it could be, I have even considered a virus but I have done countless scans and found nothing.

Help!!!

Cheers

Baz

Are those two ports USB3 maybe ? Many computers have 2 or more USB controllers, I know mine has 3, one USB3 and two are for USB2.

CountMike said:

Are those two ports USB3 maybe ? Many computers have 2 or more USB controllers, I know mine has 3, one USB3 and two are for USB2.

Click to expand...

It's an external 4 port USB3 hub

Oh, it's external HUB, didn't realize that because internal are called HUBs too. What happens when you plug a pen drive directly to same computer's USB port where you plug that external HUB in ?

Suggest you try:

1. Open regedit and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer
   and delete the key called: DriveIcons
2. Download: Drive Tools for Windows Cleanup Right click and run as Admin to clean up any orphan devices.
3. Turn on Show hidden File in Folder Options to see is you have any autorun.inf file on the root folder of the USB, if so tnen delete it.
4. After doing all that, Run: sfc /scannow from Admin prompt.

topgundcp said:

Suggest you try:

1. Open regedit and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer
   and delete the key called: DriveIcons
2. Download: Drive Tools for Windows Cleanup Right click and run as Admin to clean up any orphan devices.
3. Turn on Show hidden File in Folder Options to see is you have any autorun.inf file on the root folder of the USB, if so tnen delete it.
4. After doing all that, Run: sfc /scannow from Admin prompt.

Click to expand...

Tried all of that to no avail, here are some screenshots of the issue occuring, I have also scanned the ensure registry for the word Titanium and found nothing.
The first picture is in a port that has the issue and the second picture is in a perfectly working port

This worked for me. Use option 2.
Drive Icon - Change - Windows 7 Help Forums

OK,

So I tried the same hub in a different PC

It would appear that the two ports that are incorrectly showing the memory stick name do seem to behave in a different way to other ports (in that they show the device name on the first line and then the eject on the second line) however it is at least identifying the pen drives name correctly in the first line.

I am almost at the point of giving up and just accepting that's the way things are as the pen drives/tablets/other all work correctly it's just that the icon and device name appear wrong in various places.

In device manager when the pen drive is plugged in, does it have write caching enabled in properties? I used a USB dock and internal drives. I used to label them the same and have the same partition layout because when I inserted them the system wanted to use the same info over again. I had write caching enabled. I don't know if a change to hot removable will make any difference though. May be worth a try just to see what happens.

Thanks Miles....but that did not work

" hot removable" just dispenses with write cache.