WD MyPassport WD Unlocker problem

[andyt57]

One of my schools has bought encrypted WD Passport drives for their teachers. My suggestion that they use One Drive fell on deaf ears as they are out in the sticks with poor internet connections at home.

 

The problem is that the WD Drive Unlock.exe file asks for the administrator account and password to run on the school system. There is no way that I am giving all the teachers the admin password!

 

The school system is a server running Microsoft Server 2008 R2 with Windows 7 professional clients.

 

Has anyone else resolved this problem? Is there any way of setting up a GPO to allow the teachers to run this one program without requiring the admin password?

 

Andrew

[Mako]

Put a shortcut on the user's desktop and point it at the drive letter for the WD Passport, properties the shortcut and point the target at

C:\Windows\System32\runas.exe /user:%admin% /savecred "WD Drive Unlock.exe"

where %admin% is the username of the local account with elevated permissions. Make a new user if necessary on that machine.

 

You may need to go to the machine the first time and enter the account details (while the teacher is logged in), but the /savecred switch means they won't be prompted again and you haven't given them any details.

 

It becomes a pain if they move rooms frequently or jam another USB drive in which will force the Passport to have another drive letter as the shortcut won't work, but you could get around that by either modifying the shortcut for them or having multiple shortcuts with frequently used drive letters.

 

I haven't found a way around it by any other method with this particular model of USB drive.

[Arthur]

Has anyone else resolved this problem?

I normally format the drive and use Bitlocker To Go. This works with Windows 7 Pro...

 

www.techrepublic.com/blog/windows-and-office/secure-your-usb-drives-with-bitlocker-to-go-for-windows-7/

[andyt57]

I normally format the drive and use Bitlocker To Go. This works with Windows 7 Pro...

 

www.techrepublic.com/blog/windows-and-office/secure-your-usb-drives-with-bitlocker-to-go-for-windows-7/

 

When I right click on a USB drive I don't get the Turn on BitLocker option and the Microsoft site indicates that BitLocker is only available for Windows 7 Enterprise and Ultimate, not Professional. How did you get it working in Windows 7 Professional?

 

However, as a work around, I installed BitLocker on a USB drive on a Windows 10 Professional test machine, inserted it in a Windows 7 Professional machine and it works!

 

Many thanks.

 

Andrew

[andyt57]

Put a shortcut on the user's desktop and point it at the drive letter for the WD Passport, properties the shortcut and point the target at

C:\Windows\System32\runas.exe /user:%admin% /savecred "WD Drive Unlock.exe"

where %admin% is the username of the local account with elevated permissions. Make a new user if necessary on that machine.

 

You may need to go to the machine the first time and enter the account details (while the teacher is logged in), but the /savecred switch means they won't be prompted again and you haven't given them any details.

 

It becomes a pain if they move rooms frequently or jam another USB drive in which will force the Passport to have another drive letter as the shortcut won't work, but you could get around that by either modifying the shortcut for them or having multiple shortcuts with frequently used drive letters.

 

I haven't found a way around it by any other method with this particular model of USB drive.

 

I'll have a go with that. The only problem is that both the desktop and the program menu are clamped down by group policy.

 

Thanks

 

Andrew

[Arthur]

When I right click on a USB drive I don't get the Turn on BitLocker option and the Microsoft site indicates that BitLocker is only available for Windows 7 Enterprise and Ultimate, not Professional. How did you get it working in Windows 7 Professional?

Exactly the same way as your workaround.

 

Once the drive has been encrypted you can read/write on non-Enterprise/Education editions of Windows.

[Mako]

We don't use mandatory profiles and users can place their own items on their desktop, so if you have heavy restrictions that limit new items then it may be a bind. As we use roaming profiles with folder redirection it was straightforward to path to their folder from my workstation, create the shortcut, then go to the user's workstation and run it to get the admin prompt for the first time. Every time thereafter it works (with the above caveat).

 

I'd never before seen such an issue with a portable HDD and haven't had any problem with any other brand or model.