How to Show/Unhide Hidden Partition in Windows 7?

About Hidden Partition

In Windows 7 platform, the operating system creates a hidden partition or more than one hidden partition after Windows 7 installation. The hidden partition could be referred to as the recovery partition around 100 to 200M capacity, EFI System partition (ESP), or OEM partition.

•The Recovery Partition stores the recovery data to restore your computer to its factory settings. And the Recovery partitions are typically accessed by using a specific key combination during or after the computer's power-on self-test without the operating system’s CD or DVD.
•The EFI System Partition (ESP) is a partition that is used by computers adhering to the UEFI. When the computer is booted, UEFI firmware loads files stored on the ESP to start the operating system and various utilities.
•The OEM partition is designed for system recovery or factory restore. It allows users to easily and quickly restore the system to its original state when system failure or system crash occurs. This partition usually comes with Dell, Lenovo, or HP computers.

Generally speaking, the hidden partition contains the system files and other critical information, which could not be visible in Explorer so that the user is unable to modify these system files in case of system failure.

How to show hidden partition in Windows 7?

The hidden partition has no drive letter assigned so that you could not find the hidden partition under My Computer. However, you could access the hidden partition in Disk Management. Click My computer->Manage->Storage->Disk Management. For some reason, you would like to show the hidden partition in Explorer sometimes, how do you get there? You will find the Change Drive Letter and Paths option greyed out in Disk Management if you are trying to assign a drive letter to the hidden partition even under administrator rights. Thus, we give you the below solutions:

There are best two free ways to show hard drive partition: unhide hidden partition in Windows 7 with DiskPart, show hidden partitions with the best free disk partitioning software.

▌1. Via DiskPart

How to show hidden partition in Windows 7? You could use DiskPart to show the hidden partition in Windows 7, here are the steps

Step 1. hit the Start and type cmd.

Step 2. Input diskpart.

Step 3. Then type these commands to show the hidden partition:

•List disk
•List volume
•Select volume n (where the n is the volume number of the hidden partition you want to operate)
•Assign

Then you will find the hidden recovery partition shows on the Explorer.

Besides, you may need to hide the hidden partition with these commands:

•select volume n (where the n is the volume number of the hidden partition you want to operate)
•Remove letter m (the "m" is the drive letter of your hidden partition)

▌The best free disk partitioning software-AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard

How to show hidden partition in Windows 7? Another way to unhide hidden partition in Windows 7 is using AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. This powerful freeware is good at managing hard drive partitions. It permits you to format, delete, and split, merge, move, hide, unhide partition, copy disk, etc. To show a hidden partition, you need to assign a drive letter to the hidden partition. Then, you could show hidden partition in Windows 7. The simple steps are listed below.

1. Install and run this program. On the main window, right-click the hidden partition you are going to operate, then choose Advanced->Change Drive Letter.

2. Choose a drive letter for the hidden partition. And hit OK.

3. Press Apply to commit the change to show hidden hard drive partition in Windows 7.

Nevertheless, in case the system or system restore fails, it’s highly recommended to hide the hidden partition, you could refer to these steps:

1. On the main window of AOMEI Partition Assistant, right-click the partition and select Advanced->Hide Partition.

2. Click OK.

3. The pending options will show “Hide partition Recovery (*:)” or other words like that, and click Apply to commit.

Besides, you may want to unhide or delete the recovery partition, EFI System Partition, or OEM partition to delete the partition with this freeware. By the way, AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional will give you more advanced features, like allocate free space, migrate OS to SSD, convert GPT to MBR without losing data, etc. The server edition for server users you would not want to miss.