Drives not accessible

[redraleigh]

A few years ago I vaguely remember running an XP tweaking utility that hid drive letters from view. Well, now when I pop in a usb device with storage I can't see it! It's connected. Windows hardware wizard tells me it's there - I just cannot see a drive letter in explorer. Is there a way for me to reset doing whatever I did back then so all my drives letters are visible?? Thanks.

 

[ksiemb]

A few years ago I vaguely remember running an XP tweaking utility that hid drive letters from view. Well, now when I pop in a usb device with storage I can't see it! It's connected. Windows hardware wizard tells me it's there - I just cannot see a drive letter in explorer. Is there a way for me to reset doing whatever I did back then so all my drives letters are visible?? Thanks.

Registry tweak or a utility is mentioned here: http://phorums.com.au/archive/index.php/t-140127.html

 

[redraleigh]

I followed this suggestion. No change.

 

[ksiemb]

did you Reboot ?

Are there DWORD values at that registry location ?

See this link:http://www.lancelhoff.com/how-to-hide-a-drive-letter-in-windows-xp/

Shows how to hide by creating DWORD, and unhide by deleting the entry.

 

[ksiemb]

I followed this suggestion. No change.

you can also use command prompt for diskpart

Click Start >> Run (This brings up the Run dialog box)
- Type cmd and press Enter (This brings up the Windows Command Prompt)
- Type diskpart in the command prompt and press Enter (This launches the Diskpart utility within the Command Prompt window)
- Now type list volume (This displays a list of all mounted volumes on your computer and their associated drive letters)

Select the volume for the letter you want to hide
(volume 6 = drive E for example)
- as reference, if, for example, you would like to hide drive E, type select volume 6

- Now type remove letter E (Note: This sometime requires a reboot)

Diskpart will now remove the drive letter. The drive will no longer be available via Windows Explorer or My Computer.

Don’t worry though, your data remains safe!

Now, should you want to unhide the drive and make it accessible again, just repeat the above process. But instead of typing remove letter E, type assign letter E