Odd issues with USB keys and internal CD drives

[TwistedHelixis]

Hi, Last week when I visited a small primary school I had different teachers saying that their USB keys and suddenly stopped working. While testing I found I could take the USB key that was not working and it would work fine in any other laptop, but I could also take any other USB key and use that in the laptop that the other key was not working in. So it would seem I have an issue with each particular USB key in a particular laptop.

 

Last week I switched all the keys round and handed them back and everything worked fine for a few days but today I have had emails saying that the USB keys are not working again.

 

The keys are purchased encrypted keys but Windows is not even recognizing anything has been inserted, although the laptop does give that beep sound. Also a few of the teachers have emailed me to say the CD drives have stopped working, so I suppose its somehow related.

 

Would it have been a Windows update? seeing as it happened on more than one laptop at about the same time?

 

Any ideas?

[Passat1983ICTech]

have you try updating the bois see what happens

[TwistedHelixis]

have you try updating the bois see what happens

 

Nope. Ill give that a try when onsite tomorrow.

[Passat1983ICTech]

or update the drives and the chip set that might work see what happes

[synaesthesia]

Issue with drive letters perhaps? Some encrypted drives act like a CDRom until they're unlocked, and then usually they create a second drive which is the unencrypted bit.

[sted]

might be worth putting usbdlm on an affected laptop and excluding certain drive letters from being used by usb devices

[TwistedHelixis]

Not sure its a drive letter issue, as I can still use all the other encrypted USB keys in the laptop.

[TwistedHelixis]

Deleting both the CD drive drivers and the USB drivers and then re scanning for new hardware, seems to have fixed the issue.

[dapaulio]

Is it installing a driver of the internet and possibly corrupting it. Never liked those encrypted usb sticks although never faced this issue before. Personally and anyone who carries a usb still I have educated them on bitlocker to go and for the others have created an rds server so that data doesn't have to be carried around

[TwistedHelixis]

Just had a call from a teacher saying the issue has come back. For the moment I will show her how to remove the cd + USB drivers and re install.

[hardtailstar]

Just had a call from a teacher saying the issue has come back. For the moment I will show her how to remove the cd + USB drivers and re install.

 

Are the USB sticks trying to run as an administrator? We had that issue so had to install software from the maker of the USB stick. This seemed to fix it.

[TwistedHelixis]

Are the USB sticks trying to run as an administrator? We had that issue so had to install software from the maker of the USB stick. This seemed to fix it.

The teachers are local admins on these laptops.

 

I am now getting reports from my other schools with the same issues.

 

Some of the issues are coming from staff that do not even have crypto keys and are reporting issues with the cd drives, and some that do not have cd drives are reporting issues with the crypto keys. The only common item is they are both listed under the 'DVD/CD-ROM drives' in device manager and have the little yellow triangle, but can easily be fixed by uninstalling and installing the windows driver.

 

EDIT - although the fix only lasts for a few days

Edited June 29, 2017 by TwistedHelixis