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How To Easily Hide Drive Letters or Partitions from Appearing in My Computer

Posted By Raymond In Category: Computer

Jul
27
2008

My ex-boss from another state will be coming to visit me and stay in my house for a day. He also told me that he might need to use my computer to check his emails and also his home CCTV. I rarely allow people to use my computer or laptop because all my personal files and information is in there. Although he assured me that he won’t touch my stuff, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry. I don’t want him to be “accidentally” snooping around my files.

I partition my drive where the system drive (C:) is where I install Windows and my E drive is where I save all my files, documents and etc. All I need to do is to hide my E: drive from My Computer and that should do it because I know that my ex-boss is not a computer geek. So here is how I easily hide E drive letter parttion from appearing in My Computer.


I found a few ways to do it. I’ll list them all out for your convenience.

Via Computer Management
1. Go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > and run Computer Management.

2. Expand Computer Management (Local) > Storage > Disk Management.

3. Right click the E: drive partition and select Change Drive Letter and Paths..
Disk Management Change Drive Letter

4. Select E: drive, click Remove button and click OK.

To add back the drive letter, follow the above step 1 to 3, and click Add button. Make sure Assign the following drive letter is select and click OK.

Via Tweak UI
1. Download and install Tweak UI.

2. Run Tweak UI, go to My Computer > Drives.

3. Uncheck the drive that I want to hide. Click OK.
Tweak UI hide drive letter

To restore the drive letter, simply run Tweak UI, go to My Computer > Drives and check the hidden drive letter.

Via EASEUS Partition Manager Home Edition
1. Download and install EASEUS Partition Manager Home Edition.

2. Right click the drive letter or partition, select Advanced > Hide. There’s a warning saying hiding this partition may cause drive letter to change. Click OK button.
FREE EASEUS partition manager hide partition

3. Click Apply button at the bottom left and click Yes to apply the changes.

To show the drive letter, right click the drive letter or partition, select Advanced > Unhide. Click Apply at the bottom left.

The above method is not perfect but it can surely prevent the drive letter from appearing in My Computer while you can can rest easy knowing that the files on that drive or partition are less accessible to other users. If you see run Windows Disk Management, you’re able to see that there is a partition but without a drive letter. If you’re looking for a fool proof way, TrueCrypt might be the best solution.


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    • asasas

      thanks ray, this is useful for me somehow

    • http://ginzon.f-sw.com Ishaan

      Hey Raymond thx for that even i got many friends n relatives who try to snoop in my computer to view my stuffs….So this is very usefull for me.

    • Pranav

      Thank you very much raymond. I have been looking for this since past may days….I really appreciate you for this work…

      thanks a lot

    • Pranav

      hey i have some stuffs i mean some tips and tricks that can be useful to you.If you don’t mind can i share it with you. how can i make them reach to you. i am sure it will be helpful to you and others who visit this blog too.

      dont post this comment as its just for you.. my e mail id is
      pranav.dxb@live.com If you can send me a mail i can respond it you and send it to you abt the stuff i am talking about.

    • Moose

      That seems like a hell of a lot of work when you could just add a restricted user account and make sure your NTFS permissions are set up right ;)

      I\’m assuming you use your own account with administrator rights – if your ex boss is not a geek it\’s all the more reason not to let him loose on your own account!

    • yao90

      Hiding your drive would possible to prevent he virus infection on your partitioned drive? But the downside is you can’t access that drive if you hide it? Or maybe there is a way to access the hided drive? :D

    • http://www.raymond.cc/ Raymond

      @Moose: I’ve thought of that too but I didn’t want to add an extra user account and configure the restriction. Just wanted a plain and simple way to do it.

      @yao90: Yeah that’s true. By hiding a partition, virus wouldn’t be able to infect the files in the hidden drive.

    • pavan

      yes there is a way to acess the drive simply..

      assume u hide the drive “d:”..goto run and press d:

    • pavan

      @ya090
      yes there is a way to acess the drive simply..

      assume u hide the drive “d:”..goto run and press d:

      virus can be affected to hidden drives also

    • pavan

      using the above tip u can only hide the drive from explorer …ur drive is completely accesible frm disk management….

      to hide ur drive completely (advanced)

      try norton partition magic sft, there is a option to hide the drive in advanced

    • Knysliux001

      http://www.truecrypt.org would do the job for geeks also ;)

    • http://www.raymond.cc/ Raymond

      @pavan: If use Computer Management to remove the drive letter, then it won’t be possible to access the drive using Run. But if Tweak UI, yes, it can be accessed using Run.

    • newt

      why dont u just delete the illegal porn u have stored on ur drives..

    • John

      Can you use the search function to find files in that disk?

    • http://www.raymond.cc/ Raymond

      LOL @ newt. Some people can only think of porn and nothing else…

    • http://www.kongsiblog.org kita

      tq this information

    • http://slold.com slold

      useful tips for me…
      thanks raymond

    • Plank

      U can also hide ur drives with the Microsoft Management Console

      Just go to Start the RUN and write gpedit.msc next go to user configuration —> Administrative Templates –> Windows Components –> Windows Explorer –> there u will find 2 options 1 to Hide Drives and the other one is for noone can access the drives

      that way u dont need to download anything

    • Mahmoud

      cooooooooooooooool

    • anonymous

      Thanks Very Useful.
      Had a Spywareinfection wihch hid my c: and d: drives. Tweakui brought them back!
      Already had it installed but did not think of it :))

    • Kai

      wh not using built in Windows gpedit.msc? It also have an option to hide and restrict access to drive

    • Amir_jr

      many thanks to you for some help:))))))))

    • gggirlgeek

      Yes, another guest account and restricting access to the drive through group policy would be the secure way to go without the lengthy hassle of TrueCrypt. Hide the drive letter too JIK.

      However, if it happens to actually be another physical drive, you could pop it out of the case and stick it in a USB enclosure for external drive access while the guest is staying over. If it’s just for a day and you don’t have a USB enclosure, wrap the drive up in a towel and store it away temporarily (sans the static, please. Must use fabric softener and keep it away from the cat!)

      Assuming these videos of your bosses wife are too big to simply move off the computer temporarily :) you could also pop in an old, small hard drive with an image of your OS on it. Even better, a fresh copy of Windows that doesn’t have to be activated for such a short-term use. (Don’t activate it or you’ll set off alarm bells in Redmond and have complications with restoring your real hard drive. Just use the 30 day trial.)

    • adam

      hi
      the tweak doesn’t work with window 7. any other software? many thanks

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