You may want to block USB mass storage device to disallow the unauthorized use of pendrives or you may want to unblock USB mass storage device to get access (most of the case in college’s net lab). Well, this can be done by a simple registry tweak. Before doing so, I recommend taking a backup of the regustry because playing with registry can be harmful for your OS. Read (How to backup your windows registry). When you have backup the key :
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR proceed further.
To disable access
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR]
“Start”=dword:00000004
To enable access
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR]
“Start”=dword:00000003
Copy the required code to a text file and save it as *.reg file. Just open that file and information will be added to the registry.
Source : Thinkdigit Forum
Need any kind of help? Let me know through your valuable comments.
Comments
22 responses to “How to enable/disable access to USB mass storage device”
THis tip will come in handy as lots of pen drive viruses are spreading.
@Madhur
Yeah! Many registry trick comes handy. I wish I can remember them all so that they can be recalled anytime.
Thanks for the info. I was aware of this solution but after my latest reboot, i receive the following message “Cannot edit Start: Error writing the value’s new contents”. This started happening after the latest reboot of my WORK desktop and I am fairly certain some type of script was applied to preclude me from editting the registry file. Any ideas on another workaround?
@mauric6943
I tried asking on forum but didn’t got a reply. ❗
Thanks for the followup.
thanx a lot bro…this what i looking for in my office!!!
its good very good. u r solutions is very useful to me. thank for u.
@ arios, Manish
You are welcome. 🙂
Simple but workable solutions. Thanks. Cheers
sorry dear it does not work on my office computer….there is norton installed in my computer before installing this i had no problem but now i can’t use pendrive…..please help me if u can
thanks
I have a work i did on microsoft publisher on my usb device and i have been able to access this work until a week ago. the program does not respond and when i try going through the pages, it freezes up and does not respond so i will have to close it. i even tried to print it so i can save my work and redo it again, but it wont print and it again says not responding. i’m not sure why. but i believe the program was running on my computer when the lights in the building i was in was turned off, which means my computer also. so help me. how can i save my work. is there any way, i have tried to do everything i know of.
i had disabled the usb storage drives in regedit.
two days back,i am remove usb mouse and connect the pendrive its detecting.
how its possiable?
Please explain.how to disable permanently.
Thanks for the post, i enjoyed reading it. blogging is not as easy as many think it is, it’s hardwork. any how thanks.
Thanks a lot!!!!!
It worked…..
🙂
Hi,
It’s very helpfull, I need u re help,
I am using Windows 7 OS, I need some help,If anyone make try to copy Data from USB to Computer System they should be unable for that but if anyone make try to copy data from Computer System to USB they should be able for this TASK, Can anyone suggest me what should i do for that
Sorry, I don’t know about Windows 7 because I don’t use it now.
hey plz can u tell me how to disable pen drive in linux operating system..
it wud b very much useful to me..
I tried that on a limited user account on my college computer but I got no success to change registry as the way mentioned above. Can you help me out to get it work on limited privileged user
thanks
You would need access to an admin account to change it, else what’s the point of doing it. Right?
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR]
“Start”=dword:00000004.
i try this before but after restarting the PC when i login the USB was still working. our computers connected to Domain server. on Local Machine it works.
but the Domain over writer registry policy, none.
we are using Server 2003 SP1. please help.
i need to desable USB storage mass for over 168 computer on the Domain
We use a product from Mcafee called DLP. It came with teh business suite of software we bought for A/V. We set up some rules and policies on our domain so any HID device can work, but mass storage cannot. Then we edited it to allow admin USB keys (it will let you enter the serial number from the key into a whitelist). It has been working wonderfully. DLP does a lot more, but that is all we use it for right now. Like I said, it came with a suite of tools we already had.