How to enable / disable USB drive / port on Windows 7/8/10?

If your computer stores a lot of sensitive and important data. When someone intends to "steal" these data, they simply plug the USB into your computer and copy to their USB drive.

To protect these important data, you can disable the USB drive / port on your computer so that strangers cannot access and steal your data.

Here are 5 ways that Admin can block others from using USB drives:

1. Change the Mass Storage Devices Registry value for USB.

2. Disable USB port from Device Manager (device manager).

3. Uninstall USB Mass Storage Drivers.

4. Thanks to 3rd party support - Freeware.

5. Use Microsoft Fix It.

Here are some ways to enable / disable USB on a Windows 7 PC:

1. Enable or disable USB Drives and Mass Storage Devices with the Registry

1. Go to Start => Run to open the Run dialog box.

On the Run dialog window, enter regedit and press Enter to open the Registry Editor.

2. Next navigate by key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesUSBSTOR

On the right pane, select Start and change the value in Value Data to 3 then click OK to reactivate the USB port and allow you to use a USB drive or a Pen drive.

If you want to disable USB Drives and Mass Storage Devices, follow the same steps and set the value in Value Data to 4 .

2. Disable USB from device manager (Device Manager)

If the USB port still does not work, you will have to search in the device manager (Device Manager). It is possible that Admin has disabled the USB port here.

Check on the device manager (Device Manager) and reactivate the disabled USB port by right-clicking on each option and then selecting Enable .

3. Uninstall USB Mass Storage Drivers

If the authorities are concerned about security, they will proceed to uninstall USB Mass Storage Drivers. In this case, you only need to reinstall the device driver.

When you remove the USB drive, Windows will conduct a driver check. If it is not found, Windows will ask you to install the driver. When you install the driver, it will unlock the Pen drive and USB drive.

4. Use USB Drive Disable / Enable

You can download and install the USB Drive Disabler / Enabler tool to your device. This tool allows you to easily enable or disable USB drives on your computer.

Download USB Drive Disabler / Enabler to your device and install it here.

5. Block users from USB connection

If the USB storage device is installed on your Windows computer, you can edit the Windows Registry to make sure that when anyone connects to your computer, the USB drive will not work.

In this case you can use Microsoft Fix it 50061 to edit the Windows Registry.

Refer to some of the following articles:

1. How to format the hard drive should set the Allocation unit size?

1. Instructions for creating a USB drive contain the Windows XP, 7, 8 and 10 installer

1. Differentiate USB 2.0 and USB 3.0

Good luck!