How to Hide a Drive in Windows Explorer. You’ve probably read a bunch of posts on how to create hidden folders, protected folders, locked folders, etc. On Windows in many cases! Heck, one of the most popular articles on this blog used to be about how to create a safe and locked folder in Windows XP. However, hiding a folder is not an easy task, and it usually doesn’t work unless you’re using something like Bitlocker or FileVault
So, here’s another way to “hide” your data, but with the big caveat that it can be easily found by someone with some technical skill. If you are trying to trick the computer of illiterate parents or friends, then feel free to try the next method. Essentially, this is a registry hack that hides the computer’s drive, i.e. C, D, etc., from the Windows Explorer interface.
Even though you cannot see the drive in File Explorer, it can still be easily accessed through the command line or by manually entering the path in the address bar of File Explorer. Plus, the drive will still show up in third-party programs and tools like Computer Management, etc. It’s not real security, but if someone doesn’t know the drive exists at all, this might be a quick way to keep it safe. from the sight.
I tried this hack on Windows XP, Windows 7, and Windows 8 and it worked on all three. Okay, here’s how to implement the hack: First, make a registry backup as it requires adding a key to the registry. After backing up the registry, open Registry Editor by clicking Start, Run and typing regedit.
Now navigate to the next registry hive shown below:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE – Software – Microsoft – Windows – Current Version – Policies – File Explorer
Right-click the explorer and select New and then DWORD Value. On Windows 7 and Windows 8, you can select DWORD (32-bit) value.
Name the new value NoDrives and then double-click on it to open the properties dialog. Click “Decimal†for the base unit.
Enter one of the following values ??depending on the drive letter you want to hide.
A: 1, B: 2, C: 4, D: 8, E: 16 , F: 32, G: 64, H: 128, I: 256, J: 512, K: 1024, L: 2048, </ span> M: 4096, N: 8192, O: 16384, P: 32768, Q : 65536, R: 131072, S: 262144, T: 524288, U: 1048576, V: 2097152, W: 4194304, X: 8388608, Y: 16777216, Z: 33554432, All: 67108863
If you want to hide drive E, just enter 16. The really cool thing about this trick is that you can hide multiple drives by adding their numbers together. For example, if you want to hide drive E and drive G, enter 80, which is 64 + 16.
Restart your computer and your drive will be hidden! You can even hide the C drive, although I see no point in doing so. In case you’re wondering, everything is working fine.
If you want to get your drives back, change the NoDrives value to 0, or just remove the value entirely. If you often need to hide and open the drive, it may be better to write a script that does it for you. However, as mentioned earlier, you can access the drive covertly while it is hidden, so there is no real reason to reveal it.
This trick also works for mapped drives, so if you want to hide mapped drives you can do it that way (although it might be easier to unmount the mapped drive). If you have any questions, please leave a comment. Enjoy!
How to Hide a Drive in Windows Explorer
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