How to Hide Drivers in Windows 10 (Guide)

Have you ever worried about people accessing data on your Windows computer? You hand over your computer to someone for a specific reason and they eventually review your personal data. Most likely, you were looking for ways to protect your data. Of course, you can always encrypt your drive for security, but the encryption process takes too long. Also, after you enter the password, the drive remains decrypted until the next time you log in. And you don’t want to get out of your computer every time you have to go away, do you?

What if I told you there’s a better way to get what you’re looking for? Imagine being able to hide your disk drives from File Explorer so that their data is still accessible to you. Yes it is possible. Actually, there is more than one way to do this. So without further ado, Here are the best ways to hide drives in Windows 10:

note: I’m showing the process on my Windows 10 Creators Edition computer, but the process should also work on Windows 8.1, 8 and 7.

Hide Drive But Access It Anyway

It is possible to hide a disk drive from File Explorer and still access its data. Actually, this particular method can be achieved using one of two ways – Local Group Policy Editor or Registry Editor. Here are step-by-step instructions on how to hide a disk drive using one of the following ways:

• Using the Local Group Policy Editor

1. Open Local Group Policy Editor by typing “gpedit.msc” In the run command window.

2. Now navigate to the following directory:
User Configuration/Administrative Templates/Windows Components/File Explorer

3. Here you will see a list of different settings. double click on “Hide these specified drives in My Computer”.

4. From the opened window, change the config to “Enabled”.

5. In the same window, select the desired option from the drop-down menu. “Choose one of the following combinations”. I will choose “Restrict drive D only” for demonstration.

6. Click “OK” to save your changes.

Now if you open File Explorer you cannot see the disk drive.

If you still want to access your data, you can: enter the path in the Run command or in the address bar of your File Explorer and press Enter. For example, if I want to view my ‘D’ drive, I will open the Run command window and type in “d:/”.

If you want to return to your previous settings, Change the configuration in step 4 to “Not Configured” or “Disabled”.

• Using the Registry Editor

1. Open Registry Editor by typing “regedit” Run in the command window.

2. Now navigate to the following path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

3. Once there, right-click anywhere on the white space. Right Pane –> New –> DWORD (32-bit) Value.

4. You will need to Rename it to “NoDrives” without quotation marks.

5. Now double click in this registry key and change the base to “Decimal”. In the “Value data” entry, enter the value corresponding to the path of the drive you want to hide. from the list below:

A –> 1 G –> 64 M –> 4096 S –> 262144 Y –> 16777216
B –> 2 H –> 128 N –> 8192 T –> 524288 Z–> 33554432
C –> 4 I –> 256 O –> 16384 U –> 1048576
D –> 8 J –> 512 P –> 32768 V –> 2097152
E –> 16 K –> 1024 Q –> 65536 W –> 4194304
F –> 32 L –> 2048 R –> 131072 X –> 8388608

If you want hide all your drives, enter 67108863. If you want to hide multiple drives but not all, enter the sum of the values For example, if you were to hide drives D and E, you would have to enter 24 (8 + 16). In my case, I will type ‘8’ as I want to hide my ‘D’ drive.

6. Now Click “OK” and then restart your computer.

To undo your changes, you can: Change “Value data” to ‘0’ or delete the registry key completely.

Removing a Driver’s Pathname

If you’re still a little worried about your privacy after reading about ways to hide your disk drive, you can go a step further. You can completely remove the letter reserved for a drive. That way no one can access a drive that literally has no path. This method can also be applied in two ways – Disk Management or Command Prompt.

• Using Disk Management

1. Open disk management by opening run command window and typing “diskmgmt.msc”.

2. You will now see the list of disk drives available on your computer. Right click on the drive whose path you wantand choose “Change Drive Letter and Path…”. I’ll do it again for my ‘D’ drive for demonstration.

3. From the opened window, Select “Uninstall” then choose “Yes”.

Now you will have an unallocated partition. No one will be able to see it in File Explorer or access it in any way.

If you want to undo the changes you have made, Repeat steps 1 and 2 and select “Add” from the popup window. Now you can assign the same letter or even a different letter if you want.

• Using Command Prompt

1. Hungry Command Prompt in administrator mode. To do this, you can press the key. Windows + X, then ‘A’.
2. In the Command Prompt window, type “disk partition” and press enter. This should change your directory to “DISKPART”.

3. Type now “list volume” and press Enter. This will show you the partitions available on your system.

4. After that type “select volume” after the existing number against the drive You will receive a confirmation message that you want to remove the path. In my case, I would type “select volume 3” to remove the ‘D’.

5. After the confirmation message, type “remove letter” followed by the letter of the drive. You will receive a confirmation message. In my case, I will type “remove letter D”.

This method will again leave you with an unallocated drive. to return, Follow steps 1 to 4 and then type “assignment letter” followed by the letter you want to assign to that driver.

SEE ALSO: How to Disable Ads in Windows 10 File Explorer

Time to Hide Your PC’s Disk Drive

Now that you know how to hide your computer’s drives from others, you can give your computer to them without worrying about them accessing your data. Your data will be hidden from view, but you will know how to access it.

Do you know any other tricks with which you can hide your partitions? Let me know in the comments section below.