Hard Disk Monitoring

Hi,

Since upgrading to 1803 I have noticed that Windows 10 is blocking memory access to two files, HDSentinel.exe and storectrl.dll, this results in HD Sentinel not showing anything correctly, once I allowed both as exceptions, it seems to be working again.

Controlled Folder Access blocked C:\Program Files (x86)\Hard Disk Sentinel\storectrl.dll from making changes to memory.
Detection time: 2018-05-08T19:47:27.455Z
User:
Path: \Device\Harddisk0\DR0
Process Name: C:\Program Files (x86)\Hard Disk Sentinel\storectrl.dll
Signature Version: 1.267.1013.0
Engine Version: 1.1.14800.3
Product Version: 4.14.17639.18041

Controlled Folder Access blocked C:\Program Files (x86)\Hard Disk Sentinel\HDSentinel.exe from making changes to memory.
Detection time: 2018-05-08T19:47:27.455Z
User:
Path: \Device\Harddisk0\DR0
Process Name: C:\Program Files (x86)\Hard Disk Sentinel\HDSentinel.exe
Signature Version: 1.267.1013.0
Engine Version: 1.1.14800.3
Product Version: 4.14.17639.18041

Hi,

Thanks for your message and excuse me for the troubles.
I know this is annoying, but I can confirm that it is absolutely not a bug/limitation of Hard Disk Sentinel.
May I ask why you posted in the "Bug reports" topic?

I definitely agree that there is a bug: this is a problem with Windows Defender, more precisely its "Controlled Folder Access" function.
If a software (Hard Disk Sentinel) works for 10+ years similarly on all Windows versions (and even without problems with Windows 10 for long time) I see no reasons of blocking.
Controlled Folder Access seems blocking everything - and I have no real idea why.
Yes, the solution is to manually add the software to the list of exceptions, as this way it will be allowed to work as should, to access the disks like previously.

I contacted Microsoft immediately when the issue first detected, submitted the latest version for analysing.
In 24 hours, I received the answer that

"Hello Janos, Thank you for contacting Microsoft. We have reviewed the file and
have marked it as clean. Reported Scenario did not get generated at our
end. Best regards, Windows Defender Response "

So as the software is marked clean, I see no reasons of blocking. I outlined them on 23 Apr 2018 in a longer message:

Thanks for your message and thanks for your excellent support.

However, it seems the problem is still not really solved.

According users, Hard Disk Sentinel (while it does not contain malware, the submission results are safe)
is still blocked: several IOCTL calls can't work as resulted "access denied" errors (even if the software runs
as admin rights of course).
Because of this, Hard Disk Sentinel can't communicate with SCSI, SAS, USB, firewire, NVMe drives now,
until the user manually add HDSentinel.exe to the list of exclusions. Please see attached screenshot.

This was not required until 1 Apr 2018.

Is it possible to restore the situation?

but received no response since that.


I'd be more than happy if that would be "bug" in Hard Disk Sentinel (as then I can fix it) but this bug is related to Windows Defender.
I'm still checking the possibilities about displaying a warning message when the software itself blocked and attempt to make some other changes, but generally I can't "break" the blocking (and I never want it of course).

The solution is to
- while-list Hard Disk Sentinel in Windows Defender as you did
- disable the Controlled Folder Access function of Windows Defender
- use a different 3rd party antivirus (for example AVG FREE) as alternative, instead of Windows Defender

If you have any ideas, thoughts, or ways about how to contact Microsoft about how to resolve, I'd be more than happy to hear.

I would say a bug is a bug regadless if its with Windows or Hard Disk Sentinel so would have thought this is a suitable topic.

As there was no other posts on this was not sure what was done if anything on this item previously but it would seem it was already investigated.

I had to exclude both HDSentinel.exe and storectrl.dll to get RST+LSI SAS controller drives reporting again, it would be useful to know if any other exclusions could be required for other drive types for both myself and others who come across this issue?