USB Drives on XP Pro and System Restore Error

[Jim McGowan]

I have an issue with a USB Flash drive that has me pretty much baffled.

The Flash drive is a pre-programmed Sandisk Cruzer from MedicAlert called
eHealthKey. It is pre-loaded with my account information and is
self-installing and somehow uses AutoPlay (or AutoRun?) whenever inserted
thereafter.

I could not get it to install at all on my desktop PC - an HP Pavilion
running XP Pro SP2. MedicAlert's support tech said, 1) Imust have Autorun
enabled for it to work, and 2) Since it is not running on my PC it must be
defective. Knowing that a USB drive will not autoplay unless there is an
..inf file telling it to, I checked, and the only command in that file simply
points to a setup.exe file. I tried running the setup.exe manually; it
starts, but then does not finish - it just silently disappears.

I decided to try it on a notebook - a Dell Inspiron 8600 also running XP Pro
SP2. It works just fine. The installer ran and it autostarts fine each time
I insert it. Back to the desktop - no dice.

Both PCs are running Zone Alarm Security Suite 6.137 and MSAS. Both are
completely up-to-date with Microsoft Update. I haven't run into any other
applications that will run on one but not the other.

I ran Autofix from the Microsoft site, and all of my autoplay function is
once again working (I had disabled it purposely), but the USB drive still
will not auto-install nor auto-run.

Looking deeper, I noticed that the Event Viewer shows similar messages every
time that I have tried to use the drive: System restore encountered an error
while trying to read PHRConfig.ini (which is the config file for the USB
drive). Event Viewer also shows an Info alert saying that the System Restore
service has been suspended because of the error, and that when it has at
leat 200 MB of disk space available for that drive it will restart.

It appears that my desktop PC is seeing the USB Flash drive as a hard drive
and is trying to save a System Restore backup for it. I have System Restore
on the PC set to use 12% of each drive's space, but I guess the minimum must
be set at 200 MB. So System Restore is trying to work on the USB Flash drive
and find a minimum of 200 MB, but since the drive is only a 128 MB drive,
system restore is killing any further action by the USB drive.

How in the heck did my desktop PC's System Restore get set to try to work on
every drive, including USB? I checked the settings and I don't see where
that can even be set. And how can I reset this, or exclude the USB drive? I
realize that I can simply turn off System Restore on that PC, install the
USB drive and its apps, and then do that each time I want to insert that
drive. But there must be a better way!

Any help with this is greatly appreciated!

 

[phillip maurice nelson]

you will have to create a restore point:access the
system restore wizard through the help & support center,
then click create a restore point and then click next,
in the restore point description box, type a name to
identify this restore point.system restore automatically
adds to this name, the date & time that this restore
point is created, then click create.

 

[Jim McGowan]

Phillip,

I'm not certain that I understand your answer at all. This tells me how to
set a restore point manually. I can do that already - that's not the issue.

Unless I'm just missing what you're saying.

Thanks.

 

[Malke]

Phillip,

I'm not certain that I understand your answer at all. This tells me
how to set a restore point manually. I can do that already - that's
not the issue.

Unless I'm just missing what you're saying.

Thanks.

You're not missing what he's saying. He's a troll who has spewed
ridiculous and often damaging advice on the MS newsgroups recently.

I honestly don't know why your usb flash drive won't work on your
desktop. As for where you can manage System Restore, go to the System
applet in Control Panel and click on the System Restore tab. You should
see all drives that are being monitored by System Restore. There's a
button to the right of the drive listing where you can turn off
monitoring on individual drives.

Here's a general USB troubleshooting article from MS:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=310575

Do you have other USB devices normally plugged into the desktop? If you
do, what happens with the thumbdrive if you disconnect all other usb
devices? What about trying your thumbdrive connected to a usb hub? What
other internal drives do you have in the computer and what are their
drive letter assignments? For instance, do you have optical drives
assigned letters further down the alphabet - for ex. M and N - and the
thumbdrive gets assigned D: or E:?

These are just "hunting around" suggestions but I'd be interested to
know what the results are.

Malke