"Removable Disk" names

[Paul Unger]

I'm new to Windows 7 and there are a few things that perplex me about it... One is that even though all of my USB flash drives have names, they all show up as "Removable Disk" in Windows Explorer. The names all show up in Computer Management, but not elsewhere. Does anyone know how to change this?

[Harryc]

The 'removeable disk' thing is by design. I think you can change it for some flash drives by flipping a 'removeable' bit. In the below linked thread, there's a piece of advice about doing your homework before running any utilities that purport to change your USB drive's setup, and I think that's good advice.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/For ... 0a49c87191

[Paul Unger]

Thanks for pointing me to that forum, Harryc. While the post you indicated didn't solve my problem, another one did. The problem is that I've used Panda USB Vaccine on my flash drives and there is something about the AUTORUN.INF file that Explorer doesn't like... (go figure!). I removed the AUTORUN.INF file in Ubuntu and when I plugged the flash drive back into the W7 machine, the drive name showed as expected in Explorer. So whether this is by design or by mistake, I don't know, but I'm not sure I want to remove the Panda Vaccine.

So with this added bit of information, does anyone have a clue about how to have both a vaccinated flash drive and the drive's name show up in Explorer?

[w0qj]

You can also press [Win]+E to open Windows Explorer, then right-click the drive you wish to [Eject].

[Paul Unger]

You can also press [Win]+E to open Windows Explorer, then right-click the drive you wish to [Eject].

I'm aware of that, w0qj. I was concerned more with navigating than ejecting. When I have three USB storage devices plugged in, it's kind of confusing to have them all labelled "Removable Disk"... Whereas if the names I've given the devices would show up, it would be no problem. I've pretty much resigned myself to the fact that this is one of W7's little quirks--it's a fine OS otherwise.