Want to hide a drive or partition from preying eyes? Here is a simple way to hide a drive in Windows using the Disk Management tool or Command Prompt.
On creating a new drive or partition in Windows, it will automatically appear in File Explorer. Each drive has its own Drive Letter to identify it uniquely. For example, the Windows installation drive has “C” as its drive letter. From there, almost any application or user in your computer can see that drive and access it, provided it has required permissions. Generally, this is good because you or other users on your computer don’t have to do anything extra to access the drive. As long as they have proper permissions, any user can access, modify, or delete any file or folder.
However, there might be situations where you need to hide a drive in Windows. For example, stop kids messing with your files in a specific drive, make the drive hard to find, hide system reserved partition, etc.
The good thing is, with a simple trick, you can hide any drive or partition in Windows with just a few clicks or a couple of commands.
Important Note: Please don’t use this method as a security measure or to protect sensitive files. For that, I recommend you encrypt the files using something like BitLocker.
Note: Also, make sure the files in the drive you want to hide are not in use by any program.
Hide drive using Disk Management tool
Disk Management software is a built-in Windows tool to manage disks and drives. We can use it to hide a drive in Windows. Here is how.
- Press the Start key on your keyboard.
- Search and open the “Create and format hard disk partitions” tool.
- Right-click on the drive you want to hide.
- Select “Change drive letter and paths.”
- Select the drive letter and click “Remove.”
- Click “Yes” in the confirmation window.
- With that, the drive is hidden.
- You can open the File Explorer to confirm the hidden drive.
Detailed steps:
First, search for “Create and format hard disk partitions” in the Start menu and open it. This is the built-in disk management tool.
Right-click on the drive you want to hide and select the “Change drive letter and paths” option.
Select the Drive letter and hit the “Remove” button.
As soon as you do that, Windows will show a confirmation Windows. Press the “Yes” button to continue.
If the disk is in use, you will see another prompt telling you the same. If you know it’s nothing important, click the “Yes” button to continue. Otherwise, click “No” and close the program that is using the drive you are trying to hide.
As soon as you do that, the drive is completely hidden in Windows. The data in the drive is unharmed; you just cannot see it. To use the drive, you have to unhide it.
Command to hide a drive in Windows
You can use the diskpart command to hide a drive in Windows. Here is how.
First, open the CMD window as admin. After that, type “diskpart” and press Enter to open the Diskpart tool inside Command Prompt.
Next, type the “list volume” command to list all the volumes/drives. Identify the volume number of the drive you want to hide.
After that, type “select volume #” and press Enter to select the drive you want to hide. Don’t forget to replace “#” with the actual volume number.
Since we want to hide the drive, type the “remove letter <driveLetter>” command and press Enter. Replace “<driveLetter>” with the actual drive letter of the selected volume.
Finally, type “Exit” to exit Diskpart and close the Command Prompt window. With that, you have successfully hidden the drive in Windows. If you open the File Explorer, you will no longer see the drive.
To show the drive, follow the same steps but use “assign letter <driveLetter>” as the last command. i.e., instead of the “remove letter” command.
Show hidden drive in Windows
To show the hidden drive, follow the below steps.
Open the “Create and format hard disk and partitions” tool from the Start menu. Right-click on the drive with no Drive Letter and select the “Change drive letter or paths” option.
Next, click the “Add” button.
Select the “Assign the following drive letter” option, choose a drive letter from the dropdown menu, and click the “Ok” button.
With that, the hidden drive will appear in File Explorer in Windows.
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That is it. It is that simple to hide a drive in Windows and show a hidden drive in Windows.
I hope that helps.
If you are stuck or need some help, comment below, and I will try to help as much as possible.
Like this article? Check out how to hide files and folders in Windows & how to list all hidden folders in Windows.
