Change description of USB device

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Hi (and apologies if this should be in Win7 rather than Hardware). I have a USB flash drive that shows up with an unprintable character as its device name when viewed in (Win7) “Devices and Printers” and the Safely Remove menu. I’d like to rename it to something a bit more user-friendly, such as a description of the hardware.
30558-comsol130559-comsol2
30560-comsol3
Having dug around, it looks like Windows is getting this from the “Bus reported device description” field.
30561-comsol4
But I can’t find any way of changing it. Is this possible?

(If you’re wondering, the device is a Comsol UFK-4000 USB flash drive. Seems to use standard Windows drivers. The drive/volume labels seem to work fine, just the device model is a problem.)

Thanks!

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Paddles,

[*]Open Windows Explorer.
[*]Right-Click on the Device.
[*]Select Properties.
[*]Type the new name – Note the current name should be highlighted so just typing over it will overtype the old name. If it is not highlighted do it manually.
[*]Click Apply
[*]Click OK.

Note: at step 3 you could also select Rename and get the same result. :cheers:

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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No, neither of these work. If I update the device properties it updates the name for the middle device function (TIMA) shown in the left part of the last original attached screenshot – but it doesn’t change what’s displayed for the device as a whole (i.e. as if the other field circled takes precedence). Rename changes the disk volume name (“RoboForm2Go” in the original screenshots) not the device name.

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Has the device always displayed a character instead of a name?
Does the device continue to function as it was intended?
Have you attempted to create, view, or edit an inf file on the drive?

Other Ideas

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Has the device always displayed a character instead of a name?
Does the device continue to function as it was intended?
Have you attempted to create, view, or edit an inf file on the drive?

Other Ideas

The device is new, has always had that character. Other flash drives I own have a more usable description.

Aside from this device label, the drive behaves completely normally.

No, I haven’t attempted to edit any .inf file from the drive. I did copy across an AutoRun.inf from the flash drive that this one replaces (noting that the previous drive was a different manufacturer/model, and its device and volume labels were both fine). Here is the autorun.inf contents:

Code:

[AutoRun]
open=PortableRoboForm.exe
action=Launch RoboForm2Go
shellRoboForm2Go=Launch RoboForm2Go
shellRoboForm2Gocommand=PortableRoboForm.exe
icon=PortableRoboForm.exe
label=RoboForm2Go

(You’ll note that the label in here matches the volume label shown in the screen shots, which does display correctly. It is the device name/description that is the problem.)

How is the device formatted is it FAT32 or NTFS? the information from the “bus reported device description” is supplied by the flash drives firmware but not sure if the way it reports it is different on FAT32 format than NTFS formatted drives. Fat formatted drives have a tighter limit on the length of names so it may be shortened if the devices name is too long.
If possible try reformatting to NTFS after backing up the data somewhere else first so as to be able to paste it back after fromat.

Flash drive was (factory-) formatted FAT32. I just tried reformatting as NTFS – no change to what was displayed or my ability to change it. (If you’re wondering, I do have admin rights on both the computers I’ve been using to access this drive.)

Not sure whether the problem is in the drive firmware, or whether this is updatable. The vendor site doesn’t have any firmware downloads.

Thanks to everyone for ideas so far. Any others?

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How is the device formatted is it FAT32 or NTFS? the information from the “bus reported device description” is supplied by the flash drives firmware but not sure if the way it reports it is different on FAT32 format than NTFS formatted drives. Fat formatted drives have a tighter limit on the length of names so it may be shortened if the devices name is too long.
If possible try reformatting to NTFS after backing up the data somewhere else first so as to be able to paste it back after fromat.

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I know this is an old thread, but I was wondering if a solution had been found to change the “device name” in the firmware. Whereas paddles problem was a non printable character on my devices it is blank. (I bought two – Micro Center store labeled but under the hood it is a Smart buy with a Phison PS2251-07 controller chip) This is not to be confused with the volume/disk label which can be easily changed within windows. This is the name the bios reports even when bios boot menu is selected (BBS) for the USB drive. The problem for me is if I make the drive a windows install media from a windows 8.1 DVD ISO and boot into setup when I get to selecting the target partition and click next setup gives an error. and am dead in the water. I can use other flash drives (Sony, PNY) with no problems. The solution is to be able to access the firmware and apply/change the device name. Let me know what you think…Thanks

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I know this is an old thread, but I was wondering if a solution had been found to change the “device name” in the firmware. Whereas paddles problem was a non printable character on my devices it is blank.

Sorry, no, I never found a solution to this. All the answers so far have been for how to change the Windows volume/disk label (which was never a problem and I could change it), not the device name.

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Sorry, no, I never found a solution to this. All the answers so far have been for how to change the Windows volume/disk label (which was never a problem and I could change it), not the device name.

After reading this further information, I looked in Computer Management, Device Manager and see the name of a drive is derived from the drive itself by Windows, must be encoded during manufacture of the drive. Some of mine such as the memory card slots show as a Generic USB device. The HDDs show as the make and model such as WDC WD2500JS-00MHB1 ATA Device. Again, I had no hand in that naming, occurred when Windows 7 installed. I added a second HDD and same thing, naming occurred automatically.

One other thing, I ran into a posting somewhere the other day about cloning an HDD and booting to that drive in that Windows identified the new drive as a new computer and Activation had to be accomplished again. I haven’t had occasion to personally check that yet.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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I have successfully ‘named’ my Thumb/Flash drives according to capacity, e.g. Crucial32GB. It helps mightily in Windows Explorer to identify them.

The old DOS command was Label and could be 11 characters as I recall. Using the Properties and General tab is where I label them in Windows Explorer. It may require formatting the drive which usually prompts for a label. I keep them as FAT32 to enable use on any computer including Macintosh and Linux.

I do the same with External HDDs [Hard Disk Drives] but they are all NTFS-formatted.

I’ve seen problems with creating bootable USB drives in not working if they are used for anything else, any information on them being changed, etc., find it best to create it and assign it only to that purpose.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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Original post…”This is not to be confused with the volume/disk label which can be easily changed within windows.”
This is the “Disk Name” the firmware reports to the BIOS which needs to be changed.
Put a flash drive in and turn on your computer. press F12 or what ever key is required to get the bios boot menu. Observe that there is a name usually associated with the manufacturer next to the usb device in the list.

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To give your USB/smart card drives unique names and an icon if you want is fairly easy:

Copy an icon (32×32) to the root of the drive. – Note this is optional.
Open Notepad and create a text file with the following lines:
[autorun]
icon= the name of your icon .ico
label= the label you want to assign . E.g. Alans Files
Save the file as autorun.inf and copy into the root of the drive/card.

When you open explorer now it should the given name.

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See reply to Berton above, Thanks guys

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I ended up just returning the drives and purchased Toshiba drives which appear in the bios with a name, now windows install works just fine.
Concerning HDD cloning, if the installation is windows 7 and during initial installation setup had created a “system Reserved” partition, this partition must be included in the cloning.

Windows 8/8.1 however is a different story. They changed activation to a KMS server and authenticates a key with the computers specific generated hardware id. If you have a new key and install windows on a computer then activate it, that key now becomes linked to that computers hardware id. The hardware id is a composite of a computers specific hardware. If you change any of the non removable hardware the id will change and the computer will de-activate and need to be re-activated. This means any device that is plugged into the motherboard on the inside of the computer… memory, video cards, network cards, hard drives where the OS is installed. I have heard of others encountering this problem before. I force 1 partition install (this is not possible on UEFI systems)

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