How to Enable / Disable USB Port or Device and Pen Drive access in Windows 7 and XP

January 15th, 2010 by Giridhar | Posted under Windows.

microsoftUSB Devices are portable enough to carry the data from one computer to another , It is always risky to enable USB ports of computers in large organisations , data center and cyber cafes since it can be the gateway for virus and malwares. You can disable or enable USB port or device in three ways

Enable / Disable USB port and device in BIOS

It can be enabled or disabled in BIOS where the peripheral device setting are configured. While booting the system you will be getting an option to configure BIOS settings. But only problem is you will not be able to use those USB ports for any purpose like connecting USB keyboards or mouse or any devices.

Enable / Disable USB port and device using registry hack in windows

Another effecive way to enable or disable USB port or device is to hack registry entry in windows , it will allow you to use your USB port for other fuctions like connecting keyboard or mouse but you can restrict the data storage through USB port

A. Click on Start –> Run –> regedit [enter]

B. Search for the key “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UsbStor”

C. Select the key UsbStor , double click on Start value.

D. In “Value data” enter 4 to disable USB storage  , or enter 3 to enable USB storage on windows system

usb enable disable

Freeware to enable or disable USB port or device in Windows 7 and XP

There is a nice tool to enable or disable USB PORT in registry. It exactly does the above mentioned steps. If you are not an experienced users then I would prefer you to use below mentioned software for this task. Please remember that it is always risky to edit windows registry.

 [Download free USB enable disable tool]

Comments

7 Responses to “How to Enable / Disable USB Port or Device and Pen Drive access in Windows 7 and XP”
  1. pendriveantivirus says:
    January 19, 2010 at 4:56 pm

    really thanks for talking about windows port controlling. i did it!

  2. devashish says:
    April 28, 2010 at 7:23 am

    It wont work on win 7…..
    it is detecting pendrives although i have enabled turn off autoplay from gpedit and selected 4 in regedit-usbstor..start……
    please help me..

  3. vivek says:
    September 9, 2010 at 1:19 pm

    this is not working for me
    plz telll me about the other procedure

  4. MANU says:
    September 13, 2010 at 11:41 am

    Hi,
    thanks it working through registry……….but now after 3-4 days registry value is still 4 but pen drive is still accessable how it possible????????
    any other way?????? pls help…..

  5. Prady says:
    November 8, 2010 at 12:16 am

    My start value for USBSTOR is being shown as 3, but it still does not detect the storage devices. Any idea what should be done here?

  6. TM Rajesh says:
    December 8, 2010 at 12:11 pm

    Hey its working thanks.

  7. Hassan says:
    February 23, 2011 at 12:17 pm

    I read from an article, this wont work if the usb drive u are inserting is new to the system. means if you are inserting the pen for the first time, it will automatically change the value to 3 even though u set it to 4.

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