BleepingComputer.com: Hard drives are not showing in 'My Computer'

OK Captain. I think we've been looking at this issue from the wrong perspective. Instead of trying to figure out how to show the disks in My Computer, I started thinking about how you would go about hiding them and I may have come up with something. Maybe two somethings in fact.

Let's start with the first. This will only work for drives A through D or all drives collectively so it may or may not help in your situation but I encourage you to at least verify the settings.

From the Start menu, select Run and type in gpedit.msc and click on OK. This will bring up the Group Policy dialog box. In the frame on the left, navigate through User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Explorer.

Next, in the frame on the right, double click Hide these specified drives in My Computer, if Enable is already selected, change the selection to either Not Configured or Disable (preferably Not Configured, that's how my unit was set). If a change was necessary, click on the Apply button, then OK. I'm not real sure what the difference between Not Configured and Disable is yet. Both settings had the same effect on my unit. I may know more later.

See how that goes before we move on to the second option. By the way, how comfortable are you making changes to the registry? The next option involves a slight registry edit. If you're uncomfortable with this, we may have to keep looking for more options. I may want you to at least take a look at the settings to see if we're on the right track. Try this option first before we worry about the next.

Brother Bill, on Jun 14 2010, 04:27 AM, said:

Neither of the drives have ever been mapped or hidden.

Brother Bill, on Jun 14 2010, 03:34 PM, said:

The setting was already set in not configured like yours was. And yes, I am comfortable with editing the registry.

If this is something that you're uncomfortable with, then don't attempt to make any changes, but again I would encourage you to at least verify the settings. Before we begin, make sure that you have made a backup of your registry. ERUNT Registry Backup Tool seems to be the recommended method of choice.

From the Start menu, select Run and type in regedit and click on OK. This will open the Registry Editor. In the frame on the left, navigate through KEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Policies > Explorer. With Explorer highlighted in the left panel, check for the existence of an entry in the right panel for NoDrive.

If one exists, check the value in the Data column. It should be set to 0. If it's not, double-click the NoDrives entry in the Name column. This will open the Edit DWORD Value dialog box Set the Value data to 0.

If there is no NoDrives entry, you'll need to make one. While Explorer is highlighted, select Edit fromthe menu bar, then New > DWORD value. This places a new DWORD entry in the right panel. Change the name to NoDrives and verify the value in the Data column is set to 0. If not, double-click the entry and set the Data value to 0.

Once again, If you're uncomfortable with any of this, we can keep searching for another method.

Brother Bill, on Jun 15 2010, 03:20 PM, said:

The registry did not contain the entry NoDrives, so I created one and set the value to zero. I then restarted my computer and still the drives do not show.

I'm at a loss for now. Check back on the thread from time to time. We'll see if we can come up with anything else.

Sorry I couldn't help.
Bill

Brother Bill, on Jun 15 2010, 04:37 PM, said:

It's okay Bill, thank you so much for your help so far. Another problem I've begun to encounter is when ever I try to open my extrenal K drive, I get a pop up window saying, " Windows Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvience." Normally this only happens when the window isn't responding, but now it happens right when I open my K drive. I can still access my files if I don't click anything on the window, but eventually it force closes itself. It seems like it could be a virus, but I've ran several of my virus scanners and all of them have said I have a clean system so far.

I haven't been through any of the malware removal training available so I'm not qualified to help you there. You might want to start a new thread and see if one of their team can find anything. Might not hurt for someone to take a look.

In the meantime, I'll keep looking and thanks for your patience. I've learned a bit from the experience myself and that never hurt anything.

Good Luck,
Bill

Brother Bill, on Jun 15 2010, 05:09 PM, said:

Alright Bill, I'll start a new thread for them in the meantime.

Strange issue, but not necessarily unknown.

Take a look at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925196

Also noted from another source: "Generally, Kb925196 problems could be brought on by spyware or virus infections, so it is clever to run a removal program like the one below, to take away any spy ware infections."

Seems like a good move to check for malware.

Now that you have posted in the Am I Infected forum, I will close this thread to prevent unintended confusion.

Louis

This post has been edited by hamluis: 16 June 2010 - 10:44 AM