Sunday, January 5, 2014

HP ProBook 4545s USB Flash Drive (Memory Key) trouble [SOLVED]

I bought a Windows 7 Professional refurb laptop and have been pleased with it so far.  However, it wouldn't read my Transcend 64gb USB key.  I tried all of the ports.  I tried updating the USB driver software from the HP support site.  I tried forcing the drive letter when mounting.  No joy.

The laptop would, however, read many other USB keys with no difficulty.  That helped -- it indicated that it wasn't the USB ports or USB driver issue.  Which was good, since I didn't really want to return the box.  Usually I can fix software issues -- hardware issues on laptops are more difficult.
I found a few others who were having this problem with their HP ProBooks also.  And it frustrated many of them.  After much searching, I stumbled across this post: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/62374-63-windows-unable-read-flash-drives 

Sure enough, disabling "File Sanitation for HP Protect Tools" solved the problem.  To do this, I searched for Services: 



 Start - Services
When Services Opened, I sorted by name by clicking the "Name" header.


I then double-clicked on HP File Protect. And disabled that thing with extreme prejudice. :-)  Stop the service, and then also disable it on start up.

Then I inserted by Transcend 64 gb USB key and it came up cleanly. Stupid HP and their bloatware. Ugh.  Good luck to you and I hope this helps!

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