Windows Explorer does not detect USB drives - How daemon tools killed me :(

After setting up networking among all my computers at home, I found little use for the USB drives. So I have not used them for a while. However, I use my iPod and its been a while since I synced something to it.

Last week, I thought I will copy some new songs to my iPod... Connected the device to the my computer, and.............. well, nothing happened :)

I was hoping iTunes would pop up automatically. I manually opened iTunes but it could not detect my iPod - although the iPod displayed "Do not disconnect" indicating its ready to transfer data with the computer.

Looked in the device manager - no exclamations - all looked ok.
I even re-installed iTunes and all - nothing helped.

Then I realized that iPod was not detected in Windows explorer - which was odd.
So I opened Disk Management under MMC and noticed that Windows did not assign a drive letter to the iPod - although it detected the partition.
Then, I assigned the drive automatically and viola, iTunes detected iPod.

I thought it was a one time issue where Windows did not assign the password and that it would work when I plug the iPod next time - How wrong was I :)

Yesterday, I plugged my iPod again - and same problem.
Had to manually assign drive letter.

Thats when I realized something was wrong.
Tried a couple of my USB thumb drives - same problems.
The storage device gets installed properly in the device manager - but windows will not mount the partition and hence wont recognize.

The next weird thing I noticed is that - even if I manually mount it and assign a drive letter, Windows Explorer did not list the new drive. It will only when I log off and re-login. But the drive letter I assign was available from command prompt etc. I can see the files on the thumb drive on the prompt but windows explorer wont detect...

My initial luck with Google pointed me to a MS Hot fix - I installed it - and that did not solved my problem :(

Then I saw information on some forums that it could be caused by Daemon tools - and for some reason that name ringed a bell for me.
I actually installed this Virtual CD rom SW few months back. But then I was not using it much so I uninstalled it. But apparently it was not completely removed. :( I hate that so much.

This virtual cd SW installs some emulation drivers.

I had to manually delete these files from C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\Drivers:
secdrv.sys
sptd.sys
sptd7021.sys

Then I restart and plug in my USB drive - and viola ! its gone.
Next iPod - works great automatically.

Phew - There was a sigh of relief :)

But that was not the end of it...
I saw posts on the internet that it leaves some registry entries as well.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\SPTD and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\LEGACY_SPTD

I could not delete these either - they threw error messages.
I had to adjust registry permissions by allowing administrator access to SPTD and its sub entries and then it allowed me to delete.

So end of the day, mission accomplished :)