Hide Drives in Windows 7 & Vista - How To
Concealing Unused Drives in Windows
If your “My Computer” view displays drives you rarely or never utilize – perhaps a USB flash drive dedicated to ReadyBoost, a floppy drive, or a network drive linked to specific software – you may wish to remove these drives from routine visibility.
This method simply hides the drive from the standard display. Applications and the command line will retain access, and direct folder access remains possible by manually entering the file path.
Why Hide Drives?
Consider the presence of an outdated floppy drive in your system. Maintaining a clean and uncluttered view improves user experience.
Configuring Hidden Drives
Access the Registry Editor (regedit.exe) via the Start Menu search function. Navigate to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
Should the Explorer key be absent, create it by right-clicking on Policies, selecting “New Key,” and naming it Explorer.
The NoDrives key likely doesn’t exist by default. Create it by right-clicking, selecting “New,” then choosing “32-bit DWORD” and naming it NoDrives.
This value is a 32-bit number where each bit corresponds to a drive letter, arranged in reverse order. A value of '1' hides the corresponding drive. For instance, to conceal drives A: and F:, the arrangement would be as follows:
Z | Y | X | W | V | U | T | S | R | Q | P | O | N | M | L | K | J | I | H | G | F | E | D | C | B | A |
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Converting the binary value 100001 to decimal yields 33, or 0x21 in hexadecimal. Double-click the key in the Registry Editor, select “Decimal,” and enter 33 into the value field.
A restart of explorer.exe is required to apply these changes. This can be done through Task Manager, or by logging off and back into your user account.
Reversing the Tweak
To re-enable drive visibility, simply delete the NoDrives registry key.
Drive Value Reference
The following table provides the decimal and hexadecimal values for individual drive letters:
Drive Letter | Decimal | Hex |
A | 1 | 1 |
B | 2 | 2 |
C | 4 | 4 |
D | 8 | 8 |
E | 16 | 10 |
F | 32 | 20 |
G | 64 | 40 |
H | 128 | 80 |
To hide multiple drives, consult the table to determine the correct binary code, then convert it to decimal or hexadecimal. (The Windows Calculator, in Scientific mode, can assist with this conversion.)
With this adjustment, unnecessary drives are no longer displayed!
While disabling the drive in your BIOS is a more permanent solution, this technique remains effective for various drive types.
This method is also applicable to Windows XP.
