Etcher: Google Drive File Stream and user account elevation issue

[m-p-3]

• Etcher version: 1.2.1
• Operating system and architecture: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (1703)
• Image flashed: ubuntu-17.10-desktop-amd64.iso
• Do you see any meaningful error information in the DevTools?

Description of the issue
On a corporate system with Google Drive File Stream installed and connected to a G Suite account, it is currently impossible to flash a USB drive while the virtual network drive Google Drive File Steam (G:) is connected.

This issue occur mainly when the user runs the app without admin privileges and needs to elevate the app through UAC. Since the G: network drive is unreadable to other accounts, it shows this error:

Couldn't scan the drives: Permission eeor
Error: Couldn't scan the drives: Permission error

Workaround
Temporarily stop the Google Drive File Stream client if you need to elevate the app to write a USB drive, or completely sign out and login with an account with administrative rights on the system instead of proceeding with a runas.

Is that something that could be filtered out from the drive scan, or at least make USB drives to show up anyway?

[lurch]

I assume the problem here is that the virtual drive created by "Google Drive File Stream" is only readable by the current user, and so when Etcher elevates to an admin-user, the drivelist part of Etcher then throws an error because it can't read this virtual drive.
Sounds similar to the problems we had with BitLocker etc. @jhermsmeier ?

[lurch]

Does Etcher 1.3.1 (which uses a later version of the drivelist component) work any better in this situation?

[jhermsmeier]

This is likely an issue with how the virtual storage of Google Drive File Stream is implemented (as a virtual file system rather than a block device). But we fixed that in drivelist for Windows a while back, so this should (theoretically) work fine with Etcher v1.3.1 now.
Would be great if you could let us know @m-p-3!

[m-p-3]

Hi, I've tried it (back from paternity leave) and it works fine on my end. Thanks for your help!

[jhermsmeier]

Sweet, thanks for the update @m-p-3! Closing this then