Insert USB flash drive--machine intermittent sys error?

[markg2]

This is a recent problem. It seems to have appeared after Office 365 was installed and another email related program that the machine had install problems with. I cannot revert to a prior restore point for several days until my wife gets past a bunch of time critical work with Quickbooks. Since there's only 2 points both of which are very close in time to the installs, at worst I may have to do an in place install.

Insert a USB flash drive (I've tried various). Either you'll get the attached error (but explorer will correctly display the drive and the files) or the OS correctly displays the open with box or the machine will not recognize any flash drive inserted into any port (happened for the first time this a.m.). This last condition occurred this a.m. The machine would not shutdown on its own so I did a cold boot.

The machine suffered a BSOD twice within the past month or so. The same file (and at the moment I can't give you the name since my wife is currently working the machine) was the likely factor per WhoCrashed. It was a MS sys file. I only solution association on search was malware. I ran Malwarebytes and a full Norton, all came back clean.


(EDIT): I added the crash dump

(EDIT #2): The attached error that appears more often than not IS the correct error and that seems to make little sense. The error is for a file not a device? So I went to the OS defaults, Auto Play and unchecked use auto play for all devices. Since the condition of a flash drive not appearing in explorer after insertion occurred only once I'm thinking the file the error was maybe referring to the auto play screen. Now that the function is set to off I'll wait and see while my wife uses the machine.

 

[maxseven]

The crash dump Mark is sorta out of my wheelhouse so take this for what you've paid for it: it says Volume Shadow Copy Driver and I do think that is used with System Restore also (your other thread of course).

Anyway given how wife uses the PC, IMO you should simply go to Autoplay CP and de-select "Use AutoPlay for all media and devices". I've always found it to be a complete distraction especially if you're using drives for data.

Then if you can insert a flash drive and Windows always sees it, and your wife knows how to find it, well that would be a good thing.

But if you find yourself dead-in-the-water i.e. "machine will not recognize any flash drive" or it crashes constantly then you must either be happy rebooting every time, assuming that works every time, or in the alternative make a fresh System Restore point and try the Uwe Sieber tool. I'm guessing Windows is confused about all that plugging/unplugging.

BTW if it hasn't been said already, you should make backups of all your wife's USB drives and also run chkdsk on each one.

 

[markg2]

Unclicking auto display solved the annoyance of seeing the error. However, since the error cause remains, the machine periodically still will not see a USB drive when inserted. A reboot resolves the problem until the next time.

So I ran driveclean and have a question about the results. I am attaching a copy of the CP screen.

Viewing the summary at the end, the utility removed a lot of items automatically. It did not delete 18 items. A list of the 18 items that were not deleted is at the end of the summary. I think the implication is that I must manually delete each.

If that's true, I know to follow each item's path in Regedit but I don't get the how of 'Regvalue to delete'?

Mark

 

[maxseven]

I saw some of those NextParentID items on a PC of mine just recently but don't know what they are. I would just leave those alone for the time being if I were you.

To remove them would probably require a special "run regedit as System" procedure, but until we know they're a problem I'd not focus on them.

 

[markg2]

Good plan. If she's still got the problem I'll come back and we can further discuss what's next.

 

[maxseven]

Good plan. If she's still got the problem I'll come back and we can further discuss what's next.

The most important thing at this point is to make sure you have good backups of everything. I can only imagine how unhappy she might be if this activity managed to cause any of her hard work to go bye-bye....