How do I change my Mac OS X hard drive icon?

Your Q&As here are great, but I followed your instructions on this one and nothing happened. I'm using OS 10.3.9 and no matter how many times I try to paste an icon on the hard drive, the icon refuses to change. Is there a bug or something?

Thank you,
Dave

Check to make sure you have write permission to the hard disk itself. Do a Get Info on the hard disk icon, then check "Onwership and Permissions' to ensure you have read and write permission. Good luck!

I do have read and write permission, and it still doesn't seem to work - any suggestions?

Can you still change the icons back to default?

I haven't tried, so I don't know. In previous generations of Mac OS X if you just "deleted" the icon then the original would magically reappear no reboot, but I don't know with Tiger. Of course, you could just create an empty file and paste the old icon onto it as a way of saving the default too...

I use Windows XP. I like Mac OS. But i have no chance to change it right now. i want my XP to look like Mac. How do i change the look of Win XP into Mac?

thank you.

I have checked all relevant permisions, as suggested above, still i cannot paste an icon to my hardrive on the desktop using get info etc..

I can create a folder and paste the icon to that... but the HD is a no no... no message just nothing happens??

Why?

Some obscure preference file?

It's a silly lil thing, but i really wanna know why, and customize this damn desktop..

It's for my girlfreinds xmas present...

I'm running 10.3.9..

Help!

Well...no replies but i fixed it... for anyone else who has the problem..start up from a disk warrior boot disk, rebuild, replace and restart..

Cut n paste til your hearts content..

au revoir.

Agzilla.1

I changed my HD icon like you said, thanks for the help...Now how would I go about switching it back to the default icon, im using os x in a 15' powerbook...thanks dave

I think most people (once permissions are set) will try to replace the "preview" larger icon in the get info panel. You need to copy and replace the tiny little reference icon at the top left of the Get Info panel.

The easiest way to revert to the original icon is to go to the get info window, click the icon in that panel and press command x, which is cut by the way. It should just return to the default icon.

I'm having the same problem as Agzilla and I've tried for some time to find a solution. For whatever reason, I haven't been able to change my hard drive icon for over a year, no matter what. The permissions are fine (read, write), but I cannot fix this problem. What could be going on? It's a deeper problem then you guys have addressed so far (or anywhere else I can find). Any help would be much appreciated, thanks!!!

I hving a same kind of problem.I have installed Mac OSX on my intel.Everything is working fine except that i can read from a disk but i can not write on it or make any changes.it is giving me a error 36 saying that some data on mac cannot be change.Please help in this.

You can't change the drive icon (system icons) without hacking some files or using a piece of software called Candy Bar.
See here: http://interfacelift.com/icons-mac/faq.php#5

Add "autorun.inf" file on your main folder and the file should look like this

[autorun]
ICON="Icon Location" Temp\Uriel.ICO

Try apples old free resedit, It may be a classic app but it's worth it.

The link to the download site is here.

I was just wondering. I've changed several icons on my mac...and I kinda want some of the original icons back. Is there a site that has all of the original icons?

[quote]I think most people (once permissions are set) will try to replace the "preview" larger icon in the get info panel. You need to copy and replace the tiny little reference icon at the top left of the Get Info panel.[/quote]

That got me confused for 20 minutes. thanks for pointing that little tidbit out dma.

Dear Dave,

How the heck do I copy the harddrive icon onto the taskbar of my mac

thanks Philip

tomky4@aol.com

THIS SIMPLY DOESN'T WORK! I am running OS X 10.4.9 on an iMac 20" with core 2 duo at 2.33 Ghz. All the latest. The "get info" approach won't allow me to "copy" from any item, folder, disk, app, file, etc. The "copy" option in Finder is NEVER enabled and, of course, typing Command-C won't do anything. Why is there no solution for this?

All you ppl who STILL can't do it,

in the get info window of the icon you want, click the icon preview (up in the left corner) you will see a blue halo around it, press (pretzel)-c

now go to the HD get info screen, click this icon too, press (pretzel)-v

have fun

You can change icons back to the original by clicking on the icon in get info and pressing delete.

Now that we've got the simple ones covered--what about changing the Windows boot disk icon (Windows installed on an Intel Mac using Boot Camp)? When in OS X you're not able to change the icon (shows up as the generic internal drive icon) because it's an NTFS format. I changed my Macintosh HD icon, and noticed that the icon showed up in the boot list when flipping between OS X and Windows. If anyone knows, I'd love to hear it.

Cawwot you sir, are a genius! I couldn't copy and paste for the longest time—seriously, it's a small issue but was bugging me. Never thought of trying to do this with the little preview. it worked!

Hey, I have a modified ppc cube server and a mbp ...

I never had any trouble changing the icons for os x and bootcamp and I've had some success changing the ones on os x server on the ppc...

I cant seem to change the boot partition though, any ideas?

I have entered a disk into the cd in my Imac yet I see no icon for it, where can I find the disk to put files on it?

iam using windows xp oprating sytem. i want change hard disk icons.so please help me.

I have been able to change icons using the copy and paste trick for years but today (on Tiger 10.4.11) I pasted a photo copied from a Photoshop window into one of my hard disk icons (after selecting the small icon in the upper left of the get info window). The photo was reduced to the icon's size and looked great but I wanted to change it again.

Now the system won't let me select the small icon in the Get Info window. I checked my permissions, restarted the computer, etc. but the little icon is not turning blue around the edges when I click on it.

I think this is what some of the other people in this thread encountered. Yes, the copy and paste trick works -- but smetimes it doesn't. Anyone have any solutions/theories?

I know this is an old thread but it comes up on the first page of Google search.

Hey you guys that are having problems with this trick not working may have a fat32 HD. I can change my MAC HDs with no problem but I cannot change the 2 I have that are formatted with fat32. Weird. Anyone have any ideas for that?

My iMac switched from system 10.1 back to system 9. How do I get back to system 10?

Larry, are you saying that your *icon* switched, or that your computer actually is now running MacOS 9 rather than Mac OS X? If the latter, try holding down the OPTION key when you boot up next time: should let you choose between all the installed operating systems on your computer. Pick Mac OS X, then when it's up, go into Apple -> System Preferences -> Startup Disk and make sure that Mac OS X is what's selected, not MacOS 9.