How did I hide my partition?

pat

Expert
Well, some time ago, I repartitionned and reformatted my RAID array. I created a 4 gigs partition for the swap file, and I've found a way to hide it from the "My Computer" window.

Now, I have to do it again.. but I don't remember how I did it.. I found myself smart after doing it the first time.. but now.. well, I'm lost..

So, how can one have one partition to be hidden from "my computer" but still showing in disk management?
 

MadModMike

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Well, some time ago, I repartitionned and reformatted my RAID array. I created a 4 gigs partition for the swap file, and I've found a way to hide it from the "My Computer" window.

Now, I have to do it again.. but I don't remember how I did it.. I found myself smart after doing it the first time.. but now.. well, I'm lost..

So, how can one have one partition to be hidden from "my computer" but still showing in disk management?

Remove it's drive letter.

~~Mad Mod Mike, pimpin' the world 1 rig at a time
 

pat

Expert
Well, some time ago, I repartitionned and reformatted my RAID array. I created a 4 gigs partition for the swap file, and I've found a way to hide it from the "My Computer" window.

Now, I have to do it again.. but I don't remember how I did it.. I found myself smart after doing it the first time.. but now.. well, I'm lost..

So, how can one have one partition to be hidden from "my computer" but still showing in disk management?

Remove it's drive letter.

~~Mad Mod Mike, pimpin' the world 1 rig at a time

So I deleted the name and the letter of that drive... but the letter, which is Z: is still showing in disk management
Is it that that I did?
 

MadModMike

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No, sorry..

The name is SWAP and the letter is Z:, it is showing perfectly in disk management so it must be something else...

Since you're too "Smart" to do it alone, let me guide you through it.....


1. Right click "my computer" go to "manage"

2. Click on "disk mangement"

3. Right click the drive

4. Click on "change drive letters and paths"

5. Click "Remove"

6. Click "OK" to the big, bad, warning

Voila! Now you can go back to feeling smart.

~~Mad Mod Mike, pimpin' the world 1 rig at a time
 

pat

Expert
No, sorry..

The name is SWAP and the letter is Z:, it is showing perfectly in disk management so it must be something else...

Since you're too "Smart" to do it alone, let me guide you through it.....


1. Right click "my computer" go to "manage"

2. Click on "disk mangement"

3. Right click the drive

4. Click on "change drive letters and paths"

5. Click "Remove"

6. Click "OK" to the big, bad, warning

Voila! Now you can go back to feeling smart.

~~Mad Mod Mike, pimpin' the world 1 rig at a time

I'm not in front of the compruter I have to do it, but... if doing so, would I still be able to access files on this partition, or it would be gone forever?..

Damn.. it may be what I did, but not sure enough, and I don't want to risk anything on my working computer..

You see, on my working computer, the name of the partition I have hidden is SWAP and the letter is Z;.

This partition don't show up anywhere but in the disk management where I can still work with files on it
 

pat

Expert
I did what you said, and it work, but it is not what I did.

First, the drive is not showing up in "my Computer". but it show up in disk manager. But.. I cannot do anything else on that drive. In disk manager, with my swap file partition, I can see the partition has still a letter and can still be opened, it simply just not show up in "my Computer". The other drive is no more accessible to work with..

So, I did something else, and it was not something very complicated... well..
 

MadModMike

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Feb 1, 2006
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I did what you said, and it work, but it is not what I did.

First, the drive is not showing up in "my Computer". but it show up in disk manager. But.. I cannot do anything else on that drive. In disk manager, with my swap file partition, I can see the partition has still a letter and can still be opened, it simply just not show up in "my Computer". The other drive is no more accessible to work with..

So, I did something else, and it was not something very complicated... well..

What the hell is there "complicated" to do? It's Disk Mangement for christ's sake, it's not a maze!

~~Mad Mod Mike, pimpin' the world 1 rig at a time
 

pat

Expert
I did what you said, and it work, but it is not what I did.

First, the drive is not showing up in "my Computer". but it show up in disk manager. But.. I cannot do anything else on that drive. In disk manager, with my swap file partition, I can see the partition has still a letter and can still be opened, it simply just not show up in "my Computer". The other drive is no more accessible to work with..

So, I did something else, and it was not something very complicated... well..

What the hell is there "complicated" to do? It's Disk Mangement for christ's sake, it's not a maze!

~~Mad Mod Mike, pimpin' the world 1 rig at a time

It is not complicated, it is simply not what I did and not the same result.. I just tried what you told me so it is all I can say.

It was not a registry hack either.

No, I don't remember having used tweakUI..
 

pat

Expert
Anyway.. forget it..

I'll use tweakUi to it. It'll do it exactly as I have it here. While googling, I found out a nice utility called "drive manager" that gives lot of usefull info about your drive.
 

MadModMike

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Anyway.. forget it..

I'll use tweakUi to it. It'll do it exactly as I have it here. While googling, I found out a nice utility called "drive manager" that gives lot of usefull info about your drive.

Hmm......that's nice, I'll just keep my drive letters intact since I don't really look @ My Computer as if it were a movie o_O.

~~Mad Mod Mike, pimpin' the world 1 rig at a time
 

pat

Expert
Anyway.. forget it..

I'll use tweakUi to it. It'll do it exactly as I have it here. While googling, I found out a nice utility called "drive manager" that gives lot of usefull info about your drive.

Hmm......that's nice, I'll just keep my drive letters intact since I don't really look @ My Computer as if it were a movie o_O.

~~Mad Mod Mike, pimpin' the world 1 rig at a time

I have all my partition visible but I hide my swap one. I simply know it is there..
 

MadModMike

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I was doing to opposite thing today and found a loooooooong lost partition in one of my SCSI arrays which had the game GTR and NASCAR:Thunder on it.

Clean installing Windows2003 then retweaking it for the whole damn day was not fun. :(

Yea, but gloating about it sure is :oops:.

~~Mad Mod Mike, fixin' the world 1 rig at a time
 

TabrisDarkPeace

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Will the pagefile still work after it has no drive letter to be accessed through ?

I think he just hid the drive letter using "TweakUI" the first time by the sounds of it.
 

darkstar782

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Seeing as you are just making a parition for your swap file, wtf is the point?

The swap will be no faster than setting a fixed 4gb swap on the main drive, windows (unlike linus) still uses the same filesystem on the swap and it still has to access the same drive...... if *anything* it will be slower as the swap partition is going to end up at the end of the drive and Windows will be installed at the beginning of the first partition... :/
 

TabrisDarkPeace

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Not if it he makes the swap partition within the first 1/4 (of linear total space) of the HDD / array. :wink:

The reason some people do it is you can have 1 large file, and use the largest cluster size during format, to keep overheads to absolute minimum, and performance of the filesystem and the 'one' or so files it contains to maximum.

If running multiple Windows OS's, under different partitions, (not at once in VMs) you can use the same space for the swapfile, and not lose that space 'for each OS'.