Problem with removable storage devices in Vista

I'm using Vista Home Premium on my Acer laptop, and about a month ago or so I became unable to use any removable storage devices. External hard drives, USB drives, SD and Memory Stick cards, and the DVD drive. When I put a camera card in my card reader (built in) or a USB drive in and click on it, I get a "(drive letter) is unaccessible. Access denied.

I can't take ownership of the drive (tried with UAC on and off). Sometimes my laptop doesn't even bring up the USB drive in My Computer, but it comes up in device manager. Also, I've locked and unlocked the drives with Acer eLock Management. I have also reinstalled eLock with no success. Right now eLock is uninstalled.

I can't sync my iPod either. It comes up in My Computer with the same crossout as the DVD drive. Access is denied when I click on it.





Any help is appreciated.

 

I wonder if reinstalling that lockingmanager could have something to do with it.

Can you format the drive?

 

Ah Acer!!!

Here > http://forums.techguy.org/windows-vista/687954-please-help-access-denied-removable.html

See if that helps. Cheers.

And even this > http://forums.techguy.org/windows-vista/557317-problem-removable-storage-devices.html

Edit: Looks like you have been trying to fix this issue for quiet some time now? Strange there are many other Acer users who seem to have fixed this though.. have you googled extensively?

Edit 2: Just saw you tried the elock thing! ufff...

 

Thanks for posting.

I'm running Vista Home Premium, so there is no Group Policy Editor. Typing in gpedit.msc brings up an error message.

The problem doesn't exist in safe mode- but it happens to every account, administrator or standard, in normal mode.