Disabling U3 on USB Stick (Non-destructively!) [Digg.com This!]

I have a Sandisk Cruzer 4 GB, which I wanted to disable U3 on. Although you can uninstall U3 completely from the drive I didn't want to do something I could reverse later if needed.

The way U3 works is by emulating a CD partition on the USB stick. Windows will autorun a CD much more readily than a removeable mass media partition, so U3 will autorun even though technically it's not an actual CD drive.

One way to prevent the U3 autorun is by removing the drive letter association for the disk, which can be put back later if needed.

Step 1. Load Computer Manager.

Control Panel -> Administrative tools -> Computer Management

Step 2. Select Disk Management

Step 3. Locate the U3 CD emulation drive, which will probably be circa 5 MB.



Step 4. Right click on the drive partition and select 'Change Drive Letter and Paths'.

Step 5. 'Remove' the drive letter.

You will now find when you insert the USB stick U3 will not load because the drive no longer exists as far as autorun is concerned.

To reverse this configuration perform the same steps and 'Add' a new drive.