If you have sensitive or important data stored on a particular disk drive that you dont want anyone to see, a

great way to hide it is to remove the drive letter assigned to a particular mounted volume. With Windows XP,
you can achieve this easily using nothing more than the Command Prompt. Here's how:
- Click Start ->Run (This brings up the Run dialog box)
- Type cmd and press Enter (This brings up the Windows Command Prompt)
- Type diskpart in the command prompt and press Enter (This launches the Diskpart utility within the
Command Prompt window)
- Now type list volume (This displays a list of all mounted volumes on your computer and their associated
drive letters)

- Using the above picture as reference, if, for example, you would like to hide drive E, type select volume 6
- Now type remove letter E (Note: This sometime requires a reboot)
Diskpart will now remove the drive letter. The drive will no longer be available via Windows Explorer or My
Computer.

Dont worry though, your data remains safe!

Now, should you want to unhide the drive and make it accessible again, just repeat the above process. But
instead of typing remove letter E, type assign letter E






Hide Drives in My Computer (All Windows) Popular
This setting allows you to control which drives are visible in My Computer and Explorer.
It is possible to hide all drives or just selected ones.

This tweak can be easily applied using WinGuides Tweak Manager.
Download a free trial now!
Open your registry and find or create the key below.
The "NoDrives" value uses a 32-bit word to define local and network drive visibility for
each logical drive in the computer. The lower 26 bits of the 32-bit word correspond to
drive letters A through Z. Drives are visible when set to 0 and hidden when set to 1.
If your not happy working in Hex, add these decimal numbers to hide the drive(s):
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:
67108863
For example to hide drive A and drive D, you would add 1 (A) +8 (D) which means the
value should be set to "9".
To disable all the drives set the value to "67108863".
Restart Windows for the change to take effect.
Note: These drives will still appear in File Manager, to remove File Manager, delete or
rename winfile.exe.



(Default) REG_SZ (value not set)


NoDrives REG_DWORD 0x03ffffff (67108863)



HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\...


Registry Settings
User Key:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\
Explorer]
System Key:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\
Explorer]
Value Name: NoDrives
Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value)


Prevent Access to the Contents of Selected Drives (Windows 2000/Me/XP) Popular
This restriction prevents users from using My Computer or Explorer to access the content
of selected drives. Also, they cannot use Run, Map Network Drive, or the Dir command
to view the directories on these drives.

This tweak can be easily applied using WinGuides Tweak Manager.
Download a free trial now!
Open your registry and find or create the key below.
The "NoViewOnDrive" value uses a 32-bit bitmask to define local and network drive
access for each logical drive in the computer. The lower 26 bits of the 32-bit word
correspond to drive letters A through Z. Drives are visible when set to 0 and hidden when
set to 1.
If your not happy working in Hex, add these decimal numbers to hide the drive(s):
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:
67108863
For example to hide drive A and drive D, you would add 1 (A) +8 (D) which means the
value should be set to "9".
To disable all the drives set the value to "67108863".
Restart Windows for the change to take effect.



(Default) REG_SZ (value not set)


NoViewOnDrive REG_DWORD 0x00000004 (4)



HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\...


Registry Settings
User Key:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\
Explorer]
System Key:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\
Explorer]
Value Name: NoViewOnDrive
Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value)
Value Data: 32-bit bitmask