Non-hardware related drive access problem - affects one letter onl

[Steveh]

XP SP2 Home Edition

I have a USB extension cable connected to a USB port in my computer. I use
the cable to connect either my printer or a USB memory stick. I have been
able to swap USB sticks and the printer without problem for a long time.
Recently, however, if I plug a USB memory stick into the cable, and the next
available drive is K:, I get this error message: "This operation has been
cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your
system administrator." I am the administrator but have been unable to solve
the problem.

I can work around the problem by opening Computer Management and changing
the USB drive letter to L: or higher. I can also right click on K: in
Explorer, select "Open as Portable Media Device" and then access the files on
the USB stick without problem. I can even open a command window, change to
K:, run DIR and get a full file list. It is only when I try to open or
explore K: as a drive through windows that I get the error. Another way to
work around the problem is to use TweakUI to deselect the K: drive. When I
insert my USB stick, then, Windows assigns L: or above without problem.

The problem is not hardware related. I have three USB sticks and four
different USB slots. I can mix them any way and so long as the PC thinks the
next drive letter to allocate is K:, it does so and then throws up the error
messge.

Before anyone types the usual internet advice: "You have a virus" I have run
virus checks, spyware checks, malware checks, process explorers and found
nothing. I have run PCDoctor and other tools to check the hardware. I have
uninstalled and reinstalled the USB devices. I also carried out a System
Restore to my last viable restore point. And I have searched all over the
Administrator Tools. But I can't fix the problem. I contacted HP, the maker
of my PC, and they suggested various things (including running a small .reg
file I didn't understand) before recommending a full destructive recover of
my entire drive/system. However, there must be a Windows guru somewhere who
understands mmc, services, policies and all that other esoteric stuff, who
can help me. Or maybe the registry's the problem? Or maybe it's somewhere
completely different?

My knowledge is poor to good. Please bear this in mind when replying.

If anyone can help me fix this, they will have my eternal gratitude.

Thanks

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

Locate and click the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Protected Storage System Provider On the
Edit menu, click Permissions . Click the registry key for the user that is
currently logged on and ensure that Read and Full Control are both set to
Allow . Click the Advanced button, ensure that the user that is currently
logged on is selected, that Full Control is listed in the Permissions column,
and that This Key and Subkeys is listed in the Apply to column. Click to
select the Replace permission entries on all child objects with entries shown
here that apply to child objects check box. Click Apply , and then click Yes
when you receive a prompt to continue. Click OK , and then click OK again

 

[Steveh]

Mark

Thanks for the help. Unfortunately, it hasn't solved the problem. When I
opened the "Protected Storage System Provider" (PSSP) I found other keys
inside with long alphahumeric names. I ignored these and opened permissions
on the PSSP key itself. Confusingly I have two entries that might be current
user. One is Administrator and one is UserName (obviously, not my real user
name), also shown as Owner. Just to confuse the issue when I open User
Accounts in Control Panel there is only one user show as UserName: Computer
Administrator. There were two other entries for System and Restricted. So I
clicked on Administrator first, followed your instructions, rebooted. No joy.
I then performed the method on UserName, rebooted. No joy.

Any other ideas?

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

You probably have a corrupted registry entry in that PSSP area. I would
'export' a reg file of all that, and experiment with delete, test, restore,
untill I had tried removing them all.

 

[Steveh]

Mark

I've solved it!

The problem wasn't PSSP at all -- luckily I found this out before deleting
keys. I won't bore you with the full stressful story of how I hunted the
problem down but the trouble was a registry key: Current
User\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer.

Inside that key was a DWORD value of (1024) which basically made Windows
ignore the K: drive. I reset the value to 0, rebooted and -- BINGO -- got my
K: drive back.

I have absolutely no idea how the DWORD value got changed in the first
place. No amount of virus or spyware checking has found anything. Maybe it
happened during a crash - I do remember forcing mmc.exe to close during a
lockup once.

Hope you find this info useful. I'm now well pleased after a highly
stressful couple of weeks. Now I'm going to go back to HP and politely tell
them what they can do with their recommendation of performing a full
destructive recovery.

All the best...