How to Hide Drives in My Computer of Windows 7

The article describes the procedure of hiding inactive or non-using drives in My Computer of your Windows 7 computer. There may be drives in your computer that are never accessed or are used only for specific purpose or software. Their all time appearance in My Computer can force you think of hiding them.

So, here are the reliable and simple methods that will help you perform the task on your own and without the help of Microsoft support. It is, however, advised that these should be followed carefully to avoid facing problems and eventually save time.

Instructions:

Auto Procedure –

Download NoDrives Manager, a free utility that lets you hide non-using drives from the My Computer, from a torrent but safe website. Hit the Save File button to save the file. Browse to the location, locate the nodrvman-1.2.0.setup.exe, and double click on it to open. Hit the Run button to start the installation. Follow the wizard’s instructions and complete installation.

When finished, open the tool and you will see all the drives listed from A to Z in the NoDrives Manager window. Put a checkmark in the desired drives or you can use the Select All button to select all the drives. When done selecting the drives, hit the Save changes button. When prompted with a success notification window, click on the OK button.

Now click on the Start menu and go to Run. Type ‘tskill explorer’ (without quotes) in the Open box and press the OK button. If it is Windows 7 or Vista, use the Start Search field to type the command. The selected drives will go hidden now and won’t appear in the My Computer directory. Anytime you need to make these drives visible, simply open the NoDrives Manager program again, uncheck the boxes next to the drives and then click on the Save Changes button.

Manual Procedure –

Backup your registry first or create a System Restore Point in order to roll back the changes or wrongdoings. When done, click on the Start menu and go to Run. Type ‘regedit’ without quotes in the Open field and hit the OK button. When Registry Editor opens up, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer.

If you cannot find the Explorer key or folder under Policies, then create one. To do so, click on the Edit tab at the top, click on New, and then select Key from side dropdown menu. You will see a new key appearing under Policies. Just click once on the newly created key and give Explorer name to it.
When done, click on the Explorer key to find the NoDrives entry in it. It is, by default, most of the times absent from the key. Thus if you don’t find the entry, create one. To do so, right click anywhere in the plain background, choose New and then DWORD. Now you will see a new DWORD subkey in the right hand pane.

Right click on this key and choose Modify. When the Edit DWORD Value dialog box comes, type NoDrives under Value Name box, type 33 (the numerals) under the Value Data box, click to select the Decimal option, and then press the OK button. Your NoDrives subkey will be created under the Explorer key. Now you will be required to exit all the windows and restart the explorer.exe process.

Open the Task Manager window by right clicking anywhere on the Taskbar and choosing Task Manager. Click on the explorer.exe under the Processes tab and then press the End Process button. Close Task Manager and reopen My Computer. You will not see the unused drive anywhere in the window it has been hidden.

Save the changes and reboot your computer and you will be good to go. Here is a reference to all the key values (in decimal) associated with different drive letters that need to be entered in the Registry Editor. For A drive, the decimal value will be 1; for B, 2; for C, 4; for D, 8; for E, 16; for F, 32; for G, 64, and for H, 128.