How to Hide Specific Drives in Windows 11

What Does Hiding a Drive Do?

• The drive won’t appear in This PC or the sidebar in 📁 File Explorer.
• The drive keeps its letter (like D: or E:).
• You can still open the drive by typing its letter in the 📁 File Explorer’s address bar or other ways.

How Can You Access Hidden Drives?

Even if you hide drives in Windows 11, you can still get to them easily. You can type the drive’s letter directly into the File Explorer address bar, like typing ‘F:’ and pressing Enter. Another way is to open Disk Management by searching for ‘diskmgmt.msc’ in the Start menu.

• Type the drive letter (for example, F:) in the 📁 File Explorer address bar and press Enter.
• Open Disk Management by typing diskmgmt.msc in the ⊞ Start menu search, right-click the drive, and select Open.
• Use a command prompt or Windows Terminal and type the drive letter followed by Enter.

Note: To hide or unhide drives, you need to be signed in as an administrator (the person who can make changes to your computer).

Follow These Easy Steps to Hide Drives

Step 1Open the Registry Editor

1. Press Windows key + R, type regedit, and press Enter.

⚠️ Admin Required

Step 2Go to the Explorer Folder in Registry

In Registry Editor, use the left sidebar to find this folder:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Here’s what it looks like:

Step 3Choose to Hide or Unhide Drives

To Unhide All Drives

1. Look for a setting called NoDrives on the right side.
2. If you see NoDrives, right-click it and select Delete.
3. Confirm by clicking Yes.

To hide specific drives in Windows 11 using the Registry Editor, you’ll need to create a new value. If you don’t see a setting called ‘NoDrives’ already, right-click in the right pane, select ‘New’, then ‘DWORD (32-bit) Value’. Name this new value ‘NoDrives’ and then double-click it to set its data.

To Hide Specific Drives

1. If you don’t see NoDrives, 🖱️ right-click on a blank space on the right pane, choose New → DWORD (32-bit) Value.
2. Name it NoDrives.
3. Double-click NoDrives to edit it.
4. Select Decimal and enter the number that matches the drive(s) you want to hide (see the table below for the numbers).
5. Click OK.

To hide specific drives in Windows 11 using the Registry Editor, you’ll need to create a new value. If you don’t see a setting called ‘NoDrives’ already, right-click in the right pane, select ‘New’, then ‘DWORD (32-bit) Value’. Name this new value ‘NoDrives’ and then double-click it to set its data.

Drive Letter Numbers Table

Tip: To hide more than one drive at a time, add the numbers together. For example, to hide E (16) and F (32), enter 48 (16 + 32).

Step 4Finish Up

1. Close the Registry Editor.
2. You need to 🔄 restart your 📁 File Explorer or your computer for the change to work:

   • Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open 📊 Task Manager.
   • Find 📁 Windows Explorer under Processes.
   • Right-click it and choose Restart.
   • Or simply sign out and sign back in or 🔄 restart your PC.

Summary

• You can hide one or many drives from showing in 📁 File Explorer.
• The drives keep their letters and can still be accessed by typing their letter or using Disk Management.
• You need admin rights to change these settings.
• Use the Registry Editor carefully — follow the steps exactly.
• Restart 📁 File Explorer or your PC to see the changes.

You can hide one or many drives in Windows 11 so they don’t show up in 📁 File Explorer. These drives still work and can be opened by typing their letter or using Disk Management. Remember, you need administrator rights to make these changes, so be careful when editing the Registry Editor and restart File Explorer or your PC to see the changes.