Hiding a Logical Disk Volume using Group Policies
Today I’m going to show you another method of hiding a logical volume in My Computer or Windows Explorer using Local Group Policies. This is useful because the setting can be made on a per user basis.
Remember to backup your registry before making any changes!
- Type regedit in the Run… dialog box to open the Registry Editor.
- Navigate to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies
- Click on Explorer.
- Select the “NoDrives” key in the right column. If there isn’t one you can create one by right-clicking in the right hand pane and choosing New > Binary value.
- You will now create a value similar to “0000 00 00 00 00″. You will need to calculate the proper bit settings for the drives you wish to hide using the table below.
1 - A I Q Y
2 - B J R Z
4 - C K S
8 - D L T
16 - E M U
32 - F N V
64 - G O W
80 - H P XYou’ll notice that our Binary value has four 2-digit groups. The first is for drives A-H, the second for I-P, the third for Q-X, and the fourth for Y-Z. Each of those drive letters also has a corresponding value in the table above. Setting the 2-digit value equal to the drive letter value in the table will hide the drive.
For example, to hide the E drive you would find the corresponding value (16) in the table. Then you would set the first group’s value to 16 (16 00 00 00). To hide the K drive you would set the second group to 4 (00 04 00 00) and so on. If you wish to hide multiple drive letters in the same group, you may add their values together.
- Edit the NoDrives value using the method described in the last step.
- Reboot your computer or log off the current user for changes to take effect.
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