Home » Problems » How To Show or Hide Drives in My Computer
Jul
07
 

<P>There are times when I want to hide one or more of my Windows drives because of security reasons (children getting up on the system and messing up everything or if the computer is in use by multiple people). For theses reasons, I would just prefer to hide my data in a safe place .. and if one of my drives is full of sensitive information, I would rather hide the drive from My Computer.</P>
<P>There are two ways of doing it, one from the group policy editor and the second from registry editor. I will explain both of them here:<SPAN id=more-86></SPAN></P>
<P><U><STRONG>1-Hiding drives using Group Policy Editor</STRONG></U></P>
<P>Go to <STRONG>Start –&gt; Run –&gt; gpedit.msc</STRONG><BR>The group policy editor will open. Go to the following node:<BR><STRONG>User Configuration –&gt; Administrative Templates –&gt; Windows Components –&gt; Windows Explorer</STRONG><BR>Now go to the right hand window and double click the value “Hide these specified drives in My Computer”, select enable and select the drives from the drop down menu.</P>
<P>This is restrictive in the sense that it only specifies drives up to D drive. Or all the drives can be hidden.</P>
<P><U><STRONG>2-Hiding the drives using Registry Editor</STRONG></U></P>
<P>To open the registry editor<BR>Go to <STRONG>Start –&gt; Run –&gt; regedit</STRONG></P>
<P>Go to <STRONG>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARE<BR>MicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionpoliciesExplorer</STRONG></P>
<P>In the right hand pane, <STRONG>right click –&gt; new –&gt; DWORD Value<BR>Rename it to “NoDrives”</STRONG> (without quotes)</P>
<P>To calculate the value, add together the numbers for the drives you want to hide, using the formula: A=1, B=2, C=4, D=8, E=16, F=32, G=64, H=128, I=256 and so on. Put the result in the NoDrives key value. Remember to select decimal instead of HEX from the NoDrives key. For Example if I want to hide C and F drives, C+F = 4+32 = 36. Put the value 36 in NoDrives key.</P>
<P>Alternatively, you can use <A href=”http://www.wisdombay.com/hidedrive/” target=_blank modo=”false”><FONT color=#448abd>this online tool</FONT></A> for calculating the drive values. It’s a lot easier than calculating by hand.</P>
<P><STRONG>Note:</STRONG> Always use the registry editor with caution because, if used inappropriately, it can mess up the whole system. I recommend creating a restore point before getting your hands on the registry editor.</P>
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<H2><FONT color=#cc0033 size=4>How to hide Drives using the NoDrives Registry key in Windows</FONT></H2>
<P>Hiding the individual physical,removable or optical drives in My computer is possible in Windows XP using the “NoDrives” registry entry. This entry hides the specified drives from My Computer, Windows Explorer, and in the Send To menu. The steps to perform this operation is given below. <BR><BR><B>Step 1.</B> Open Registry Editor (<SMALL><B><FONT size=2>An improper edit inside the registry editor can cause your system to behave strangely or even can entirely ruin your windows installation. So be careful while dealing with Registry</FONT></B></SMALL>) <BR><BR><B>Step 2.</B> Navigate to this key <B>HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer</B> <BR><BR><B>Step 3.</B>In the right-pane, create a new DWORD entry “NoDrives”. <BR><BR><B>Step 4.</B>Now use the above given NoDrives Registry Key Value Calculator, to find the value for your choice of drive combinations to hide. Enter that value as the Decimal value for the “NoDrives” DWORD key that you created in Step 3. <BR><BR><B>Step 4.</B>Reboot your Pc. Hocus-Pocus !!!, thats it, now the desired drives will be hidden in Windows Explorer, My Computer and in the Send To menu.</P>

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