Need help changing Windows Partition Icon :)

M

MrSneis

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Apr 5, 2006
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This has been bugging me for weeks now! I want to change my Windows partition icon on the OSX desktop and the best walkthrough I can find via the interweb is utterly useless it was seriously written by the mentally handicapped (I added my viewer commentary in bold):

1. Format a USB stick with a FAT file system (you can use any volume really, but it needs to be FAT).

2. In Mac OS X, set a custom volume icon using the Finder's "More info" window or any tool of your choice.
What is exactly meant by "set"?? I can copy and paste the icon file itself, or I can copy the icon's image through Finder but I can't paste this image onto the usb stick!

3. Open a Terminal window, enter "cd /Volumes" and "ls -la". You'll see a file listed that has the same name as the FAT volume, but with a "._" prepended. For example, "._USBSTICK". Copy that file to the equivalent name for the Windows XP NTFS partition, e.g. "cp ._USBSTICK ._WinXP".
Other than being very poorly worded, I'm assuming what is meant by "file" is actually a drive or partition. The "._" is supposed to represent something hidden, so in this step one is supposed to copy a hidden directory/drive to the hidden Windows partition? What gets me is that I do not see the hidden FAT volume nor does it make sense when this step tells you to copy said hidden drive to another non-existent hidden Windows partiton. This step essentially yields no results, nor does it make any sense as Johnny Cochrain would say

4. Transfer the ".VolumeIcon.icns" file created on the FAT file system to the root of the NTFS partition, using Windows.
I'm guessing step 3 needs to have happened for this step to take place. Too bad step 3 DIDNT MAKE ANY SENSE.

With both pieces in place, OS X shows the volume icon on the NTFS partition.
:fips the author of this walthrough and its supporters the universal sign

TIA for any help guys!
 
1. Format a USB stick with a FAT file system (you can use any volume really, but it needs to be FAT).

2. In Mac OS X, set a custom volume icon using the Finder's "More info" window or any tool of your choice.
What is exactly meant by "set"?? I can copy and paste the icon file itself, or I can copy the icon's image through Finder but I can't paste this image onto the usb stick!

Do a get info (apple-I) on your USB stick, and "get info" on the icon file itself.. On the top of the "Get Info" window you should see the icon with it's title, and the generic icon for the USB stick.
Click on that icon (fomr the icon file itself), and it's hi-lited slightly; press apple-C to copy it.
Now click on the icon (in the get info window) for the USB stick, and press apple-V; it should paste the icon, and now you have the icon from the file as the icon for your USB stick. (I hope that makes sense, too many "icons" there)


3. Open a Terminal window, enter "cd /Volumes" and "ls -la". You'll see a file listed that has the same name as the FAT volume, but with a "._" prepended. For example, "._USBSTICK". Copy that file to the equivalent name for the Windows XP NTFS partition, e.g. "cp ._USBSTICK ._WinXP".
Other than being very poorly worded, I'm assuming what is meant by "file" is actually a drive or partition. The "._" is supposed to represent something hidden, so in this step one is supposed to copy a hidden directory/drive to the hidden Windows partition? What gets me is that I do not see the hidden FAT volume nor does it make sense when this step tells you to copy said hidden drive to another non-existent hidden Windows partiton. This step essentially yields no results, nor does it make any sense as Johnny Cochrain would say

OK, suppose your USB stick's name is "MyUSBStick" in your /Volumes folder you should have 2 files associated with that usb stick. "/Volumes/MyUSBStick" which is the ACTUAL filesystem, and /Volumes/._MyUSBStick
You need to copy the ._MyUSBStick file to the ._[name of your Windows XP partition] file.
So if your Windows XP partition was /Volumes/Windows you'd do:
sudo cp ._MyUSBStick ._Windows


4. Transfer the ".VolumeIcon.icns" file created on the FAT file system to the root of the NTFS partition, using Windows.
I'm guessing step 3 needs to have happened for this step to take place. Too bad step 3 DIDNT MAKE ANY SENSE.

There should be a file on your usb stick's root called .VolumeIcon.icns this is the actual icon. you need to copy that to the Windows C:\ drive while you are in windows.
It should show up in explorer normally, so just copy it off the USB stick right to C:\
 
KaosDG Thank you very much for the explanation! That made much more sense!

Unfortunately it still doesn't seem to be working, I copied the hidden .volumeicons.icns file over to c:\ but it dosen't seem to be showing up in the boot loader or osx!
 
Oh my god. I thought I was alone in this. I just never bothered to ask for fear of complete and utter ridicule.

I'm installing XP in BootCamp again tonight then if I can get this working.

10GB should be enough for XP and VS Pro 2005 and like, WinRar and Firefox and the CCCP and all of windows updates like IE7 and WMP11... Ya think? It's 7.79GB in the Parallels drive right now, but I want some room for Virtual Memory so I was thinking say, 12.5GB or something along those lines?
 
MrSneis said:
KaosDG Thank you very much for the explanation! That made much more sense!

Unfortunately it still doesn't seem to be working, I copied the hidden .volumeicons.icns file over to c:\ but it dosen't seem to be showing up in the boot loader or osx!
Click to expand...

I'm going to have to try it later on, to see if I can get it to work. (I haven't done this yet)

If I can get it working i'll post
 
KaosDG said:
I'm going to have to try it later on, to see if I can get it to work. (I haven't done this yet)

If I can get it working i'll post
Click to expand...

IVE GOTTEN TO THE BOTTOM OF IT!!!

My Windows partition is named "Windows XP"; it just occured to me that DOS has a hard time with spaces so it would only make sense that the terminal has the same issues.

So after further research I went back and used quotations in the copying step so it read cp "._SD CARD" "._Windows XP"

After that everything worked out great!

Icon is still default HD icon in the boot loader but 1/2 is better than 0/2!

for kicks and grins I learned the hard way that when you do the copy command you cannot change the name of any of the drives afterwards without losing the logo. So if you name your Windows drive and give it a custom icon, you will have to re-do the process in order to retain your icon :(

Now to re-write the damn tutorial so guys like me can understand it!!
 
Oh hello from a newbie to this forum - I got here because I searched Google for the answer to this exact problem.

The solution couldn't be easier I've found it out for myself.....

Install 'Candybar' and set the default HDD icon to what you wish to use as the XP drive icon. Then set all the other drives from the 'Volumes' tab.

Apply the changes and restart. Presto changeo!

Easier than messing with that horrible XP rubbish.

Cheers,

M
 
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