USB Flash Drive Name Not Changing – 3 Possible Reasons Why

Why Windows shows the wrong USB volume name—and three ways to fix it.

On some Windows 10 systems, a USB flash drive displays the wrong volume label in File Explorer—even though the name is correct in Disk Management. In some cases, every connected USB device shows the same (incorrect) label. If you’re seeing this, there are three likely causes. Start with the simplest first.

Reason #1: An autorun.inf file is overriding the label

Many drives ship with a hidden autorun.inf (Setup Information) file that can set a custom label. Enable hidden items to check for it: View → Options → View → Show hidden files, folders, and drives. If present, delete autorun.inf, then safely eject and reconnect the USB drive to see the updated label.

Example: Drive D: shows a long label in Explorer. Opening autorun.inf reveals a label= entry forcing that name. Delete the file, reconnect the drive, and the label matches Disk Management again.

More on using .inf files to rename a drive: tutorial.

Reason #2: Stale USB entries in the Windows Registry

Windows logs hundreds of registry entries for each USB device. Over time, “historical” entries can stick a volume name to a drive letter, so different sticks inherit the same wrong label. The quick fix is to clear old USB registry traces.

Use USBScrub (free from Nexcopy) to remove stale USB entries—no signup required. After cleaning, reconnect the drive and check the label again.

Reason #3: Manually correcting a rogue registry value

If the first two steps don’t help, edit the registry directly. Press Start and type regedit to open Registry Editor. Use Edit → Find to search for the exact volume name shown in Disk Management. When you find the entry that maps the wrong label, double-click it and update the value. Take care—Windows will prompt before changes apply, but you should still proceed cautiously.

Show hidden files (quick refresher)

Open File Explorer → View tab → Options → View → enable Show hidden files, folders, and drives → Apply.

If none of the above resolves your volume-name issue, send details (what you tried, screenshots if possible) to gmo [at] getusb [dot] info and we’ll take a look.