Hide Drives and Partitions

Method 1-
Go to:
a)Control Panel
b)Administrative Tools
c)Computer Management/Disk Management
d)On Disk Management choose & left click drive you wish to hide, and right click on drive, and then left click on Change Drive letter and paths, then click on remove.(this removes drive letter...)

Method 2- DOS
1. Go to Start > run > type "diskpart".
A DOS window will appear with following discription.
DISKPART>

2. Then type "list volume"

The result will look like : ------


Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
--------------- --- -------- ---- ------ ---- ------ ----

Volume 0 F CD-ROM
Volume 1 C Window_XP NTFS Partition 7000MB Healthy System
Volume 2 D Softwares NTFS Partition 8000MB Healthy
Volume 3 E Songs NTFS Partition 8000MB Healthy


3. Suppose u wanna hide drive E then type "select volume 3"

Then a message will appear in same winwods { Volume 3 is the selected volume}

4. Now type "remove letter E"
Now a message will come { Diskpart Removed the Drive letter }
sometime it requires the reboot the computer .

Diskpart will remove the letter .Windows XP is not having capabilty to identify the unkown volume.

Your Data is safe now from all unauthorised users.
To access the content of hidden Drive repeat the process mentioned above. But in 4th step replace " remove" to "assign"
i mean type "assign letter E"

Method 3- Registry

For Win NT, 2000, and XP you can use the following Registry edit:

*Be sure to back up the Registry before proceeding

Open the Registry Editor by going to Start/Run and typing in "regedit" (without the quotes). Find your way to... HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies Click on "Explorer". Double-click the "NoDrives" key in the right column. If you don't find a "NoDrives" registry key, just right-click in the right pane and choose "New/DWORD Value" then name the key "NoDrives". You'll see a value like "0000 00 00 00 00". This is where the fun starts. The four sets of double zeros (after the "0000") are where you'll enter the values for the drive/partitions. Now, stay with me on this—it's not as complicated as it sounds: The first column is for drives A-H, the second for I-P, the third for Q-X, and the fourth for Y-Z. The values for each drive are as follows: 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 X So, let's say you want to hide drive D. In the first column you would put "08". For drive K you would put "04" in the second column. But what if you want to hide more than one drive in a column? Simply add the values together: D+E = 8+16 = 24. So in the first column you would put "24".

Method 5-
The easiest way with Win XP is to use the TweakUI power toy from Microsoft. Go to Start/Run and type in "tweakui" (without the quotes).

Go to My Computer/Drives and uncheck the drive/partition(s) you want hidden. Click "Apply" or "OK" when finished.

If you have XP but not Tweak UI you can download it here...
Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP


Method 6-

Another way to do it is using the gdisk.exe(DOS) or gdisk32.exe(windows) from ghost, with this method, windows users only can delete the partition, can not see it. Files attached here; Also, this is the link for syntax switches: Switches: GDisk and GDisk32 for Norton Ghost 2003 - Run gdisk32 to check all your drive and partition #. It does not use drive letter. Ex: you want to hide drive E (say 3rd(last) partition on your 2nd drive): gdisk32.exe 2 /hide /p:3 * To unhide it: gdisk32.exe 2 /-hide /p:3 * Another way to hide it is with WinPE bootup CD, using diskpart, with this windows users CAN NOT do anything with it but you have to partition it in special way; also, you only can retrieve it in WinPE bootup environment, so it only useful for storing real secret files. BartPE (Bart`s Preinstalled Environment) enables you to boot from a CD-Rom and have full read/write access to NTFS volumes - you can move or delete files, execute programs and perform other tasks, even if your Windows 2000/XP/2003 operating system will not boot properly. It offers a graphical interface and comes bundled with several free utilities and you can add your own tools when you create the CD. BartPE will initially run on your PC and gather the files it needs to create a bootable Windows CD/DVD and then create the disc for you or save it as an ISO image. BartPE vs. Windows PE? * BartPE is not supported by Microsoft. Windows PE is an official Microsoft product. * BartPE has a graphical user interface. Windows PE has a command line interface. * The tools needed to make a BartPE installation are free software. Windows PE is available only to Microsoft OEM users. * BartPE allows unlimited custom plugins. Windows PE has a limited range of plugins options. Take the example above: Boot up in WinPE environment *Run Diskpart sel disk 2 sel part 3 create partition primary id=12 assign letter=z exit -This script will create the EISA partition, assign drive letter z to it. Too inconvenient to access to it, -Search for diskpart syntax b4 using this method.

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