Windows XP - removing write protection for usb drives

Question

I have a laptop who used to belong to my company and when I plug in a usb memory drive, I cannot write any files to it. This is because company policy did not allow writing to usb drives without a special authorization (to prevent theft of files).

However the laptop is now mine, and I was given the administrator password, so I am guessing that as administrator I can remove this protection somehow. How can I do this? Currently if I try to copy a file to the drive, Windows simply tells me that the drive is write-protected, whatever usb drive I plug in. Maybe it is some registry setting?

Thank you.

Answer 1

I didn't see it in Security Policy as I expected, but I found reference to this registry entry in a thread:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control

In that key should be a key called StorageDevicePolicies with a bool value called WriteProtect set to 1. I don't have an XP machine handy so I'm curious if this is correct.

Answer 2

Have a look in the Local Security Policy under Administrative Tools in Control Panel.

Security Settings > Local (or Account) Policies > Security Options looks like a starting point.

Answer 3

Reset all security templates, from a command line for windows XP enter in the following:

secedit /configure /cfg %windir%\repair\secsetup.inf /db secsetup.sdb /verbose

Let it do its thing then restart to make sure everything loads the new settings.

Answer 4

i tried all that, do you have any solution for windows xp, because i dont see storageDevicePolicies in there, is there another option for it when using windows xp?