The icons for my hard drives don't appear properly anymore. Now when I'm in my computer in explorer, the proper icons display for a split second, and then change to the "default document" icon. I've tried using 3rd party tools like icon packager, e-icons, and activicons, to fix this, but to no avail. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

After running third party utilities it is difficult to suggest a fix because the utilities may interfere with the solution. If it was my PC ( it is a PC I assume - not a MAC ) I would un-install the utilities and rerun setup from the Windows CD. Alternately, you can insert the XP CD in the drive and run sfc /scannow in the run shell.

Without more details regarding the software and hardware configuration to include how you installed Windows this will at least put you in order.

Let us know and stay with us as we can work it out.

Welcome to MSFN mishac

I dont like fsck either

Have you made an autorun.inf on the drives? check that file and see if its pointing to the wrong path.

Yeah, I deleted the autorun.infs, but no effect

uninstall all third party icon programs, delete autorun.inf files.

Reboot! you have to reboot to see changes.

alternatively, use a third party app to change the icons back.. i think microangelo will do this, right click on the drive.. select "appearance" and select the default icon. reboot to see effects again.

Welcome to the forums mishac!