Return
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Title
How to unhide a mapped drive -
Description
A drive was mapped and configured to be hidden in Windows Explorer, however the drive is not wanted to be hidden anymore and no element can be applied to that computer to undo this state.
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Cause
Hiding a drive is done by changing a registry value, to show the drive again the value must be updated.
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Resolution
To show the drive letter again in Windows Explorer
- Open the registry editor.
- Locate the key "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer".
- Edit the value "NoDrives" and subtract the number associated to every letter, to show all drives the value must be deleted.
- Reboot the computer or end and start the "Explorer.exe" process using the task manager.
The possible values for every drive letter are: A: 1, B: 2, C: 4, D: 8, E: 16, F: 32, G: 64, H: 128, I: 256, J: 512, K: 1024, L: 2048, M: 4096, N: 8192, O: 16384, P: 32768, Q: 65536, R: 131072, S: 262144, T: 524288, U: 1048576, V: 2097152, W: 4194304, X: 8388608, Y: 16777216, Z: 33554432, ALL: 67108863. Letters can be combined adding letters values, for example to hide letters C and E, the data for NoDrives value will be 20 (C=4 + E=16), on the contrary if NoDrives value is 24 (D=8 + E=16) and D letter is wanted to be shown then 8 must be subtracted and NoDrives value will be 16 (only letter E will remain hidden).