Learn how to hide a drive in Windows 7, 8, 10 and make the specified drive invisible and inaccessible in Windows Explorer, so that you can prevent the files on the partition from being deleted by mistake.
I come here for help! I have a Dell computer with Windows 7 installed on. Partition D is the recovery partition that contains important files to restore my computer to factory default settings. To avoid accidental file deletion on it, I want to make it invisible in Windows Explorer. Is there anyone you tell me how to hide a drive in Windows 7?
Whether you want to prevent data from being seen or deleted by others from Explorer, it’s not a bad choice to hide the drive that holds these data, making the partition not showing up again in Explorer. Here list three different ways about how to hide a drive in Windows 7/8/8.1/10.
β Way 1. Hide a partition using diskpart β Way 2. Hide a partition via Group Policy β Way 3. Hide a partition via a thrid-party party tool
To make a drive disappears from Explorer, you can remove its drive letter via diskpart by following steps given below:
1. Press Windows +R at the same time to open Run box.
2. Input diskpart and press Enter key to access Diskpart utility.
3. In diskpart interface, run the following commands in order:
list volume
select volume
remove letter
After removing its drive letter, the drive won’t be showing up in Windows 7/8/ 10 File Explorer.
PS.: You can choose to remove drive letter using Disk Management as well.
Or you can hide your drive using Group Policy Editor without removing its drive letter. Here are the detailed steps:
1. To hide a drive, firstly, open Run box, input gpedit.msc and hit Enter key to open Group Policy Editor
2. Navigate to the following path:
User Configuration > Administrative Templates> Windows Components>Windows Explorer
3. On the right side, double click Hide these specified drives in My Computer
4. Choose Enable option and you can choose the drive that you want to hide. Then, click OK.
5. Exit from this window and reboot your computer.
PS.: After hiding partition in Windows 7/8/10 using Group Policy, the drive will disappear from File Explorer, but the content on it still can be accessed using other ways like File Explorer address bar.
After realizing how to hide partition using diskpart or Group Policy, let’s have a look at how to make a partition hidden using a third-party tool – AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard, specially designed for Windows operating system. Free download it and follow the steps given below:
Step 1. Install and run it. Right-click the drive that you need to hide, go to Advanced > Hide Partition.
Step 2. You’ll be warned by a message saying “Hiding this partition may cause its drive letter to be changed. Would you like to hide the partition?”. Click OK button to continue.
Step 3. Click Apply and Proceed to commit this operation.
Notes: β You are not allowed to assign a drive letter to the partition hidden using AOMEI Partition Assistant. β Please close the other running applications on the partition that you want to hide before the operation. β Hiding a partition will make its related shortcuts invalid and you can unhide the hidden partition via AOMEI Partition Assistant.
Now surely, you have known how to hide a drive in Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1 or Windows 10. You can pick up one based on your specific situation.
What’s more, AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is featured with many other powerful functions, including copying partition. If you upgrade it to Professional version, you can experience more advanced features like recovering deleted partition, converting dynamic disk into basic without data loss and so on.