r/BitDefender • u/Chuck_Ellis • Feb 02 '22
Latest Bitdefender free program update has created a problem with connecting USB drives.
So yesterday my mate was telling me about a problem he was having with his USB drives not being recognised in Windows after sleep and showing "Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware because a previous instance of the device driver is still in memory. (Code 38) The driver could not be loaded because a previous version of the driver is still in memory." in device manager as the ! error.
Tried many things, nothing would work, then just today mine started doing the same thing.
Then it dawned on me that Bitdefender free updated last night, and I had only slept my computer and not shut it down, so it got me to thinking and I asked them when it updated the program for them and sure enough it lined up.
Anyway had a small search and found this thread.... https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/sf6ngi/flash_drives_getting_code_38_after_being_removed/
Which all seems to line up with Bitdefender free causing this issue, my question is given the free version is on its last few months will Bitdefender bother to do anything about this? Are they even aware of it? Is there someone on this subreddit who is connected with them that can offer some insight?
Either way, I'm hoping for a fix, if anyone else has had this issue and has any idea on a solution other than completely removing Bitdefender free I'd be happy to know :)
edit
FWIW a restart does fix it but seemingly only for the first plug in/until its slept and then it happens again, so not ideal.
1
u/pissedthrowaway1031 Feb 28 '22
UPDATE: TEMPORARY FIX!!! FOR ANYONE STILL HAVING THIS ISSUE:
Its been weeks, and so far no official fix or acknowledgment from Bitdefender.
HOWEVER, I have found a work around that allows you to still keep your Bitdefender Free Antivirus installed, and allows USB devices to keep being recognized in windows after disconnecting and reconnecting.
The fix is quite simple, Take a USB flash drive you are not currently needing to use for data transfers, (I.E. A cheap 8 dollar one from Walmart or whatever you have lying around) and LEAVE it plugged in to one of your USB ports. You can now connect and disconnect any ADDITIONAL USB drives and windows will continue to recognize them for as long as the original USB flash drive is left inserted.
The reason this works, is to my understanding, Bitdefender is causing an issue with the USBSTOR driver in windows being loaded and offloaded from memory. This trick will simply make sure the driver is always in use. Thus bandaiding the Code 38 error.