How to Hide a Hard Disc Drive without any Software

By hiding a drive, you can protect your personal data from others. These are the 2 ways to hide hard disc drives without any software. They are 'using registry editing' and 'disc management'.



Method 1: (Using registry editing):

You can hide any drive or all drive by simple registry editing. Before editing your computer registry, it is good to back up it.

Ø Open Run command (Window key + ‘R’).
Ø Type: regedit , then click OK.
Ø From given registry editor, expand HKEY_CURRENT_USER.

Ø Look for 'Software', then expand Software => Microsoft => Windows => CurrentVersion => Policies.
Ø Then click on (Explorer).

In Windows 7, Vista and Windows 8 above steps are correct. But in Window XP, location is: HKEY_CURRENT_USER => Microsoft => Windows => CurrentVersion => Policies => Explorer.

Ø Right click on blank space in right panel, click New => DWORD Value. 

Ø Give name or Rename as ‘NoDrives’.
Ø Double click on it.
Ø Change ‘Base’ to 'Decimal' from 'Hexadecimal'.
Ø In ‘Value data’ textbox, give a number corresponding to drive you want to hide from below table. That is if you want to hide D drive, give value as 8. Or, if you want to hide H drive, then give value as 128. 

Ø If you want to hide more than one drive simultaneously, then give the sum of decimal numbers of drives as value. That is, to hide both D and H at same time, give value s 136. (Here 136 is the sum of decimal number of D and H: 8 + 128 = 136).

Drive Letter	Decimal number
A	1
B	2
C	4
D	8
E	16
F	32
G	64
H	128
I	256
J	512
K	1024
L	2048
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 Drives	67108863

Ø Then click OK. 

Ø Now you have to restart your computer or explorer process to get hide your drives. 

Note: Here if you open your Run command (Win key + R), and type hidden drive's letter with column (example: ‘D:’), then you can open that drive. This is the disadvantage of this method. But this method is applicable with someone who is not a familiar with computer. Also you can simply open drives by run command.

Ø To show hidden drives, just go to above location in your registry and just delete ‘NoDrive’ value.

Method 2: (Using disc management):

This method is more secure than first method. After hiding a drive, any one can't open that drive by Run command. 

Ø Right click on Computer (My computer). 

Ø Take ‘Manage'. 

Ø From given computer management window, click on ‘Disc Management’ from lift menu. 

Ø Now you can see a list of all your disc drives. 

Ø Right click on a drive you want to hide. 

Ø From given context menu, click on ‘Change Drive Letter and Paths…’. 

Ø Now you will a small window with your drive letter. Click on ‘Remove’ button. 

Ø Click on ‘Yes’ button from given warning message. 

Ø Now your drive should be hid. 

Ø To show hidden drive, open disc management. Right click on hidden drive name => ‘Change Drive Letter and Paths…’. 

Ø From given small window, click on ‘Add’ button. Then select a drive letter, and then click ‘OK’.

Drives before hiding:

Drives after hiding: