Member Avatar for sujk2k

Hi there,

I have a strange problem with my machine at work.
Suddenly, it has stopped detecting all the USB storage devices attached to usb ports.
As I figured it out, according to my new company policy ;-), admins blocked them from registry via group policy settings and by disabling the removable storage service.
I undo the changes and now I can access my previous usb disks, which I used successfully on this machine before.

But, when I connect a new Western Digital disk, it does not detect it as a USB Mass storage device and instead detects it as "External HDD" and asks for drivers, which is wrong.
In short, the machine is now not accepting any new USB storage devices as usb disks :-(
I strongly suspect that this is a part of USB group policy applied to the machine as the same disk is working perfectly on the machine which is not in the work domain.

I tried giving exclusive rights to usb related files in Windows\inf folder, but in vain.
Could not find anything about this problem on internet.

Please help me in this case.
Thanks in advance.

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Dani AI

Generated

The symptoms described by — previously used USB disks still work but brand‑new USB storage devices are seen only as “External HDD” and prompt for drivers — strongly point to one of two things: a device‑installation policy (GPO) blocking new device installs, or tightened registry ACLs that prevent Windows from creating new entries under the PnP Enum tree. Both let already‑installed devices continue to work while stopping any new hardware from being registered.

Useful, low‑risk diagnostics (collect these before changing anything): generate an RSOP/gpresult to show any Device Installation restrictions; capture the plug‑and‑play driver errors from the setupapi log; and record the new device’s hardware IDs from Device Manager so an admin can whitelist them. Example commands to produce evidence files:

gpresult /r > C:\gpresult.txt
findstr /i "install" C:\Windows\setupapi.log > C:\setupapi-install.txt

Also check (with a registry backup first) the permissions on:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum
if SYSTEM or Administrators cannot create keys there, Windows cannot enumerate new PnP devices. If many Enum ACLs are wrong, tools such as Microsoft’s SubInACL can reset registry ACLs, or a domain admin can restore defaults via GPO. Another quick check is the disk class GUID key (Disk drives) at
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
for stray UpperFilters/LowerFilters entries (export and back up before editing).

If a GPO is blocking installs, only a domain admin can change the policy or add the new device’s hardware ID to the allowed list — advice already suggested by and . The most effective next step is to present gpresult, the relevant setupapi log lines, and the device Hardware IDs to the domain admin so they can either whitelist the device or relax the device‑installation restriction.

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Member Avatar for lurk

Ask your "company" if they could allow it for you.

Member Avatar for sujk2k

Ask your "company" if they could allow it for you.

Thanks. But that is not possible :-)
That's why I posted the question.

Member Avatar for jermaghs07

well the only way you are going to access it is if the give you permission to. sorry. unless you can get access to admin rights.

Member Avatar for sujk2k

Hi,

I have the admin rights.
U have any further tricks other than follows:

1. Start the Removable storage service (it was stopped)
2. Registry - in HKLM\Serives, set Start=3 for USBSTOR. (it was 4 before)
3. Give security rights explicitly to my username for usb related files in windows\inf folder and remove ReadOnly attribute.

With above tricks, I managed to run my previously connected usb disks only. New ones still not working (detected as 'External HDD instead of removable mass storage driver)

Any help is highly appriciated.
Thanks.

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