Can't Rename Drive Label in Windows 10

I changed the device policy on the WinXP system from Better performance to Quick removal to disable caching and was able to write to and successfully eject the flash drive on the WinXP system. But, when I inserted it back into my Win10 laptop, the problem returned ... no label or autorun.inf file. So the failure to eject wasn't the problem. I suspect it's a compatibility issue with WinXP and USB 3.0 flash drives. I've spent more time on this than it's worth ... I'll live with it.

Thanks for the help,
Mike

I'm out of ideas, I'm afraid. Never seen anything like this before. @jumanji is a hard drive guru, maybe he can shed some light. Hold back on formatting until he comments.

Sometimes the USB drive may have a line in the autorun.inf file called label which tells the computer to call the drive by this label regardless of what you name it. Simply delete this line or change it to what you want the drive to be called.

This may perhaps be a classic Windows bug (since Vista) whereby regular connects/disconnects of USB devices cause the registry to just stop fully enumerating them (and their properties, including their labels).

Try Nir Sofer's USBDeview (make sure you download the right 64-bit/32-bit version for your system), unzip then right-click on the USBDeview executable and use Run as administrator.

Unplug ALL of your removable/mass storage USB drives then, in USBDeview, select their entries in the list and choose Uninstall Selected Devices from the File menu.

For example:


All this does is remove the build-up of historical entries in the registry. Rebooting and re-connecting the USB devices creates fresh registry entries which, in my experience, often solves enumeration issues... (although, sometimes, I've had to uninstall all disconnected devices and let the list build again).

Hope this helps...

Hello

The only way ive found to make the naming of a drive stick, is when formatting the drive.

Diskpart

FORMAT FS=NTFS LABEL=WINDOWS1064 QUICK

Then the drive naming works

Try using an elevated PowerShell console. Note that you cannot just set the label property for the drive, you need to use Set-CimInstance for the label change to be permanent.

For example, to use your drive letter/label combination of G: SAMSUNG32GB, open an elevated PowerShell console and enter this:

Code:

$Drive = Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_Volume -Filter "DriveLetter = 'G:'"

This way you know you are pointing at the right drive letter (G:).

Next, enter this:

Code:

$Drive | Set-CimInstance -Property @{Label='SAMSUNG32GB'}

This will use WMI to change the drive label on the $Drive device (previously identified with the drive letter G:) and make it permanent. (Note: It's not really permanent... it just means that the drive label will persist, unlike if you just change the label property without using Set-CimInstance.)



Hope this helps...

Hi @Paul - As this thread is about issues with drive labels, I thought I would add what I think may show a bug.

If you use something like Nir Sofer's RegScanner and search for USBSTOR then sort on the Name column for FriendlyName you'll probably see what I see... mostly drive labels but with several drive letters included (even when the device has a drive label):



I don't know what triggers it but I first noticed it years ago when I had to configure ~150 SatNavs. As I progressed through them I started having difficulties getting them recognised, hence why I believe that it may be related to the total number of USB device enumerations stored in the registry.

Hope this helps...