USB Disk problems

[markwilliamson2001]

I have a problem with one teachers laptop. When logged onto the laptop using a restricted 'user' account, it won't let them install and use the usb disk.

 

It is not restricted to just his account, just his laptop (as I have tried with my staff tester with the same laptop). If I use the pen drive as an admin, it works fine afterwards, but if a different pen drive is used, it refuses to play with the staff accounts, only on his laptop.

 

Any ideas?

Cheers

Mark

[markwilliamson2001]

No, it just says you need to be a member of administrators group to install this hardware: disk.

Prompts you for user and password, (I presume for local/domain admin). If you click cancel, it then won't 'use' the usb stick at all...

 

Only affect's this laptop... Have been through all policies and google...

 

No luck as yet.

 

Will keep you posted.

 

Mark

[SpuffMonkey]

I think this is the old problem of non-certified drivers - if the device is not MS certified - you get this problem - afaik there is no workaround

[markwilliamson2001]

I don't belive this is the problem, since the driver (usbstor.sys) is digitally signed by microsoft. (I checked in device manager as admin, once the pen drive was plugged in!).

 

Mark

[conehead]

I don't belive this is the problem, since the driver (usbstor.sys) is digitally signed by microsoft. (I checked in device manager as admin, once the pen drive was plugged in!).

 

Mark

 

 

what happens if you go into disk management can you see the usb drive, and if it's there can you change the drive letter?

[ricki]

I have this problem here for 2 reasons. The driver for the usb stick has not been loaded onto the machine as admin. Log on as admin insert the stick and let it load up and that cures that.

 

The other reason I get it is if it is trying to map the drive to a drive letter that is already being used.

 

Just a thought.

 

Richard

[markwilliamson2001]

I have this problem here for 2 reasons. The driver for the usb stick has not been loaded onto the machine as admin. Log on as admin insert the stick and let it load up and that cures that.

 

Richard

 

This is fine, but it does not cure the problem completely. What happens if the user buys a new pen drive? The problem still appears! It does not do this on any other workstations around school, just this laptop. It seems that it allows installation of usb devices as users on our desktops, just not on this laptop.

 

Mark

[markwilliamson2001]

what happens if you go into disk management can you see the usb drive, and if it's there can you change the drive letter?

 

Yes tried this and it works fine.

 

Might have to show some screen shots for you lot to show what I am on about!

 

Mark

[ICT_GUY]

I always add the teachers group to the local admins for the laptop. Since its their laptop and I want them to use their school login credentials.

[markwilliamson2001]

I presume you can do this through GP? I remember doing it for Visual Basic users, when I installed Visual Studio 2005 (what a pain in the butt that was!)

[ricki]

I always add the teachers group to the local admins for the laptop. Since its their laptop and I want them to use their school login credentials.

 

You are a very brave person giving staff admin rights on anything..

 

Richard

[ricki]

This is fine, but it does not cure the problem completely. What happens if the user buys a new pen drive? The problem still appears! It does not do this on any other workstations around school, just this laptop. It seems that it allows installation of usb devices as users on our desktops, just not on this laptop.

 

Mark

 

You are correct this does not get rid of the problem but how I reduce the agro I have is when I am creating ghost images I insert some of the usb sticks I have and the drivers are loaded at that time. There are a lot of different manufactures of usb drives but the insides are a bit more standard. If I do this I only get a few calls with this problem.

 

Just an idea.

 

Richard

[conehead]

http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html

 

You could try this

 

USBDLM is a Windows service that gives control over Window's drive letter assingment for USB drives. Running as service makes it independent of the logged on user's privileges, so there is no need to give the users the previlege to change drive letters.

It automatically solves conficts between USB drives and network or subst drives of the currently logged on user.

Furthermore you can define new default letters for USB drives and much more.

[m2d2]

USBDLM is a Windows service that gives control over Window's drive letter assingment for USB drives. Running as service makes it independent of the logged on user's privileges, so there is no need to give the users the previlege to change drive letters.

It automatically solves conficts between USB drives and network or subst drives of the currently logged on user.

Furthermore you can define new default letters for USB drives and much more.

 

Ah but does it get around the driver problem when the USB drive is inserted?

The driver letter problem is not much of an issue except for the couple of staff who plug in multi-slot card readers.

[Michael]

On the laptop, go to Computer Management > Local Users and Groups

 

Choose Groups > Administrators and add domain users

 

Now reboot and logon as this user. Adding the domain users entry, allows users to write locally, however you can and should still hide/remove C:\ using Group Policies.

[markwilliamson2001]

Thanks for all the replies guys so far, but no-one has really solved the problem at its source (The USB problem)!! LOL. I don't really want to put any of your suggestions down, but it is not the drive letter, plus I don't have any other problems with usb sticks on any of my other imaged machines, so its nothing to do with that.

 

I think either the USB Mass storage driver is F***ED, or that there is some erronoious registry entry that is causing this problem. No other teachers have reported this problem (on laptops, or dekstops!)

 

Cheers

Mark

[Joanne]

we have an msi of a usb fix that we roll out. does the trick. Search google for one.

[markwilliamson2001]

Care to elaborate a little more....

 

Cheers

Mark

[enjay]

This sounds like something which we used to get here that was caused by some MSIs we'd put round over-writing the system32\catroot folder with an older drivers catalogue. Deleting that folder and letting it recreate itself solved it IIRC, there's also a fix package from RM if you're one of their schools.

[markwilliamson2001]

No we are not RM backed...