Hide Empty Drives and Unwanted Drive Letters in Windows 11 & 10 (Safely)

To hide empty drives in File Explorer, such as card reader slots with no card in them, open File Explorer, click the three dots (See more) > Options (Windows 10: View > Options), open the View tab, check Hide empty drives, and click OK. That setting only hides drives with no media. To hide a drive that has something on it, such as a recovery partition that suddenly appeared in This PC, remove its drive letter in Disk Management, or hide it with a policy. Here is the catch most guides skip: a recovery or OEM partition showing up in This PC is not an "empty drive" and must never be formatted or filled. Removing its letter hides it safely; deleting or formatting it can break Windows recovery.

Ethan's uncle bought a desktop with a built-in card reader, and This PC showed five drives, D: through H:, none of which he used. Then a Windows update added another: a 900 MB drive labeled "Recovery" with a warning that it was almost full. He was about to format it to make the warning go away. At Jake's shop, two settings fixed both problems: Hide empty drives took the four card reader slots out of view, and removing the letter from the recovery partition in Disk Management made it disappear without touching what was on it. This page explains every way to tidy This PC safely, and which drives you should never remove.

Hiding a drive in File Explorer does not delete or change anything on it. The drive still works for Windows and apps; it simply stops appearing where you browse.

Ways to hide drives, compared

For most people, the first two rows solve everything: Hide empty drives for card slots, and removing a drive letter for partitions that should never have shown up.

Hide empty drives (Windows 11 and 10)

1. Open File Explorer (Windows + E).
2. Windows 11: click the three dots (See more) in the toolbar and choose Options. Windows 10: click the View tab, then Options at the right end of the ribbon.
3. Open the View tab in Folder Options.
4. In Advanced settings, check Hide empty drives.
5. Click OK.

The change applies immediately. Empty card reader slots, empty DVD drives and USB card readers with no card disappear from This PC and the navigation pane, and come back as soon as you insert a card or disc. The setting is on by default in Windows 10 and 11, so if empty drives are showing, it was turned off at some point, often by a tweak tool or by someone troubleshooting.

If the checkbox is already checked but empty slots still show, the reader may be reporting itself as containing media; restarting Windows Explorer, updating the reader's driver, or unplugging and reconnecting a USB reader usually sorts it out.

Why empty drives appear in the first place

Card readers, especially multi-slot readers built into desktops and printers, present one drive letter per slot: SD, microSD, CompactFlash, Memory Stick and so on. Windows assigns each a letter at startup, whether or not a card is inserted. DVD and Blu-ray drives show even without a disc. Some USB hubs and docks with card slots add more. With Hide empty drives on, Windows hides these until they have media, which is almost always what you want.

Some laptops also expose a built-in SD slot, and docking stations and monitors with card readers add their own slots when connected, which is why the number of empty drives can change when you plug into a dock.

Why drive letters start at C:

Drive letters date back to early PCs, where A: and B: were floppy disk drives and C: was the first hard drive. Windows still reserves A: and B: by convention, so the system drive is almost always C:, and other drives take D:, E:, F: and onward in the order Windows finds them: internal drives first, then optical drives and card reader slots, then USB drives as you plug them in. That is why a card reader can push your USB stick to a letter like H: or I:, and why giving important drives fixed letters, as shown below, prevents surprises.

Windows remembers the letter it gave each USB drive, so the same stick usually returns with the same letter on the same PC. Plug in many different drives over time and the letters drift further down the alphabet, which is harmless but another reason to give the drives you depend on a fixed letter.

Hidden drives still appear in Settings

The settings on this page affect File Explorer only. Settings > System > Storage still lists every drive with its usage, including ones hidden in File Explorer, and so does Disk Management. That is useful: you can keep This PC tidy for daily use while still seeing the full picture when checking space or health. If a drive vanishes from Settings too, it is not hidden but disconnected, failing, or missing a letter and partition entirely.

Storage Sense and Cleanup recommendations also work on every drive regardless of whether File Explorer shows it, so hiding a data drive does not stop Windows from warning you if it fills up.

A Recovery, OEM or SYSTEM partition suddenly showing

After some Windows updates, or after using certain partition tools, a small partition labeled Recovery, SYSTEM, OEM, Windows RE tools or with no name may get a drive letter and appear in This PC, often nearly full and triggering low disk space warnings. It is not meant to be visible. Remove its letter:

1. Right-click Start and choose Disk Management (or run diskmgmt.msc).
2. Find the partition with the unexpected letter in the lower pane; it is usually a few hundred megabytes to a couple of gigabytes.
3. Right-click it and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths...
4. Select the letter, click Remove, and confirm with Yes.

The partition disappears from File Explorer and the warnings stop, while Windows can still use it for recovery. If Disk Management will not let you remove the letter, use Command Prompt as administrator: run diskpart, then list volume, select volume N (the recovery volume's number), and remove letter=X (its letter), then exit.

Ethan's uncle's case was exactly this: the update had given the recovery partition the letter E:. Removing the letter took thirty seconds, and the low space warning never came back.

Partitions you will see in Disk Management

Anything in the "No" rows that shows a letter in File Explorer can be hidden by removing the letter. Anything in the "Yes" rows is a normal drive you use for files.

Exact sizes vary by PC maker and Windows version; recovery partitions in particular have grown over the years as Windows updates enlarged them. Size alone does not identify a partition, so read the label and file system too.

Reading Disk Management safely

Disk Management shows each physical disk as a row, with its partitions as colored blocks. Hover or right-click a block to see options. For hiding drives, the only action you need is Change Drive Letter and Paths. Avoid Delete Volume, Format, Shrink and Extend unless you know exactly what you are doing and have a backup. If you are unsure which block is which, check the label, the size and the file system against the table above; recovery partitions are small, NTFS and usually labeled, while the EFI partition is small and FAT32.

Disk Management changes take effect immediately, with no Apply button and often no undo for destructive actions. Read every confirmation dialog in full before clicking Yes; the safe actions on this page, such as removing or adding a letter, can always be reversed, but deleting or formatting cannot.

What you should never hide by deleting or formatting

• Recovery partitions: hold the Windows Recovery Environment used for Startup Repair, Reset this PC and System Restore from outside Windows.
• EFI System Partition (about 100 to 300 MB, FAT32): holds the files your PC needs to boot. Deleting it makes the PC unbootable.
• OEM partitions: hold the PC maker's recovery image or tools on some models.
• Your C: drive: obviously, but hiding it with policies can confuse apps and users.

Ethan's uncle was one click from formatting his recovery partition. Removing the letter achieved what he wanted, no drive and no warning, with zero risk.

If you are ever unsure what a partition is, the safest action is no action: leave it with its letter while you ask someone who knows, rather than formatting it to make a warning go away.

Hide a drive that has files on it

Group Policy (Pro, Enterprise, Education)

1. Press Windows + R, type gpedit.msc, and press Enter.
2. Go to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > File Explorer.
3. Double-click Hide these specified drives in My Computer.
4. Choose Enabled, pick a combination from the list, such as Restrict D drive only, and click OK.
5. Restart File Explorer or sign out and back in.

The drive vanishes from This PC and the navigation pane, but remains fully usable: typing D:\ in the address bar or the Run box still opens it, and apps can still read and write it. A separate policy, Prevent access to drives from My Computer, blocks browsing the drive in File Explorer as well; use it only if you understand it can confuse people.

Registry (all editions)

On Home editions, the same result comes from the NoDrives value. Open Registry Editor, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer (create the Explorer key if missing), create a DWORD (32-bit) Value named NoDrives, and set it in Decimal to the sum of the drives to hide: A=1, B=2, C=4, D=8, E=16, F=32, G=64, H=128, and so on, doubling for each letter. To hide D: and E:, enter 24. Restart File Explorer. Delete the value to show the drives again.

Policies apply to the user or computer they are set for; per-user settings in User Configuration affect only that account, which makes them handy for hiding drives from some people on a PC but not others.

NoDrives values for common letters

Each letter doubles the previous value, so you can work out any other letter the same way: K: is 1024, L: 2048, and so on. Add the values of every letter you want hidden and enter the total in Decimal mode. A wrong total simply hides the wrong letters, which you can fix by editing the value, so there is no risk in experimenting.

Open a hidden drive quickly

A hidden drive is only hidden from browsing. To open it, type its letter followed by a colon and backslash, such as D:\, into File Explorer's address bar, or press Windows + R and type the same. Save and Open dialogs in apps also accept the typed path. Pinning a folder from the hidden drive to Quick access keeps one-click access for you while the drive itself stays out of sight for others.

Hidden drives also still appear in apps' own file browsers, backup tools and the command line, which is usually a good thing: your backups keep working even though the drive is out of sight in File Explorer.

Keyboard users can also press Windows + R, type the drive letter with a colon, and press Enter to open a hidden drive in one step.

Hide drive letters, keep the drives

If the letters themselves are what bothers you, open File Explorer Options > View and clear Show drive letters. This PC then shows Local Disk, Data and so on without the letters. Many people find the letters useful, especially when following instructions, so this is purely a preference. Renaming drives gives a similar tidy look while keeping letters: right-click a drive in This PC, choose Rename, and type a clear name such as Photos or Backup.

Drive labels are stored on the drive itself, so a renamed USB stick shows its new name on every PC you plug it into, which makes a clearly labeled backup drive easy to spot anywhere.

Other Folder Options worth knowing

While you have Folder Options open, a few other View settings are worth a look:

• Hidden files and folders: show them only when you need to reach a hidden folder such as AppData.
• Hide extensions for known file types: clear it to see .pdf, .exe and so on, which helps spot disguised malware such as invoice.pdf.exe.
• Hide protected operating system files: leave checked; unchecking shows system files that should not be touched.
• Launch folder windows in a separate process: can make File Explorer more stable when one window freezes.
• Restore previous folder windows at logon: reopens your folders after a restart.

The Restore Defaults button on the View tab resets all of these, including Hide empty drives, which is a quick fix if File Explorer has been tweaked into a confusing state.

Disable a card reader you never use

If a built-in card reader is never used, you can disable it so its slots never appear: open Device Manager, expand Disk drives or Universal Serial Bus controllers (card readers appear in different places depending on the model), right-click the reader, and choose Disable device. Re-enable it the same way when you need it. Hide empty drives is usually enough, though; disabling is for readers that misbehave, such as one that keeps waking the PC or reporting errors.

If you disable the reader and later cannot find it in Device Manager, choose View > Show hidden devices; disabled and disconnected devices appear grayed out there, ready to re-enable.

Card readers built into keyboards or monitors connect over USB and appear under their own entries; unplugging that device is the simplest way to remove its slots when not needed.

Drives that linger after unplugging

Sometimes a USB drive's letter stays in This PC after you unplug it, or a network drive shows a red X. For USB drives, press F5 to refresh File Explorer; if the drive persists, restart Windows Explorer from Task Manager. For mapped network drives, right-click the drive and choose Disconnect if you no longer need it, or reconnect to the network. A red X simply means Windows cannot reach the share right now. For drives that reappear at every sign-in, check whether a startup script or backup tool maps them.

If a USB drive keeps the same letter in This PC long after removal, also check Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Devices for stale entries and remove them.

The opposite problem: a drive that does not appear

If a USB drive or a new internal drive does not appear at all, Hide empty drives is rarely the cause. Open Disk Management and look for the drive. A USB drive with no letter needs one: right-click its partition, Change Drive Letter and Paths > Add, and pick a letter. A brand-new internal drive shows as Not Initialized or Unallocated; right-click the disk, choose Initialize Disk with GPT, then right-click the unallocated space and choose New Simple Volume to format it and give it a letter. A drive missing from Disk Management entirely points to a cable, port or hardware problem rather than a setting.

Old drives and partitions after cloning or upgrading

After cloning Windows to a new SSD, the old drive often appears in This PC with its own partitions, sometimes including an old recovery partition with a letter. Once the new drive works and you have checked your files, you can wipe the old drive and reuse it: in Disk Management, delete its partitions and create one new data volume. Until then, removing letters from its system partitions keeps This PC tidy. Double-check which disk is which by its size and model before deleting anything; the disk you boot from is marked Boot and System.

Linux and other partitions

On dual-boot PCs, Windows usually ignores Linux partitions because it cannot read their file systems. If one gets a letter and Windows offers to format it, click Cancel; formatting would erase the Linux installation. Remove the letter in Disk Management instead. Partitions from macOS on external drives behave similarly. The same rule applies everywhere: if Windows wants to format a drive you did not just plug in new, stop and check what it is.

If you no longer use the Linux installation, removing it safely also involves the boot menu entry in the EFI partition, which is a separate job; until you do that, leave its partitions alone.

Change a drive letter instead

If a drive appears with an awkward letter, such as a USB backup drive that takes a different letter each time, give it a fixed one: in Disk Management, right-click the partition, choose Change Drive Letter and Paths > Change, and pick a letter near the end of the alphabet, such as X: or Y:. Apps and backup tools that expect the drive at a fixed path then keep working. Do not change the letter of C: or of drives where apps are installed; programs store their paths and break if the letter changes.

Good drive names and letters

A few simple conventions keep This PC readable for years: name drives by purpose, such as Data, Photos or Backup, rather than by brand; give external backup drives a fixed letter near the end of the alphabet so backup software always finds them; and keep C: for Windows and apps only. On family PCs, a drive named Family photos is far easier for everyone than New Volume (E:), and it is one less thing to explain over the phone.

Rename a drive any time by right-clicking it in This PC and choosing Rename; it takes effect immediately and does not change the drive letter or anything stored on it.

Labels can be up to 32 characters on NTFS drives and 11 on FAT32 sticks, so keep USB stick names short, such as BACKUP or PHOTOS.

Mapped drives at work

On work PCs, network drives such as H: or S: are often mapped automatically at sign-in by IT. Hiding or disconnecting them may only last until the next sign-in, when the mapping script runs again, and some business apps expect them. If you do not need a mapped drive, ask IT rather than hiding it yourself; they may be able to remove it from your profile properly.

Personal PCs that once belonged to a workplace sometimes keep old mapped drives that point to servers you can no longer reach; disconnect those, since they slow File Explorer down while it tries to connect.

The same goes for printers and shared folders added by work scripts: if they keep returning, the script is still assigned to your account.

When extra drives slow File Explorer down

File Explorer checks every drive it shows. Disconnected network drives, sleeping external disks and card readers with problem cards can make This PC slow to open, with a green progress bar crawling across the address bar. Hiding empty drives helps, and so does disconnecting stale network drives and unplugging external disks you are not using. If This PC is still slow, set File Explorer to open to Home instead of This PC under Folder Options > General > Open File Explorer to, so it does not query every drive each time it opens.

Once the stale drives are gone, This PC should open almost instantly; if it still drags, a damaged thumbnail cache or a misbehaving shell extension is the next thing to check.

Tidy the navigation pane

Drives are not the only clutter. In Windows 11, the navigation pane can show Home, Gallery, OneDrive, This PC, Network and libraries. Right-click empty space in the pane to choose Show all folders and Show libraries; remove items you never use, such as Gallery, with their own settings, and hide OneDrive if you do not use it, as our guide to hiding OneDrive from File Explorer explains. Our guide to hiding recent files covers the Home page.

Each of these is a display choice only; removing an item from the pane never deletes the files it points to.

DVD and optical drives

An empty DVD drive is hidden by Hide empty drives just like a card slot. If you want it gone entirely, because the drive is broken or never used, disable it in Device Manager under DVD/CD-ROM drives. Mounted ISO files appear as virtual DVD drives with their own letter; right-click and choose Eject to remove them when you are done.

Virtual drives created by older disc tools, such as emulated DVD drives for games, can also linger with empty letters; uninstall the tool, or remove its virtual drive in the tool's settings.

External USB DVD drives appear only while plugged in, and on many laptops that is the only optical drive; unplugging it when you are done is the simplest way to keep This PC tidy, with no settings to change.

Drives added by apps: cloud sync, VPNs and virtual disks

Some apps create drives of their own. Google Drive for desktop, for example, can mount your cloud files as a lettered drive; some VPN, encryption and backup tools add virtual drives; and mounted ISO or VHD files appear as drives too. Hide empty drives does not affect these because they are not empty. To remove them, use the app's own settings, such as choosing a folder instead of a drive letter in a cloud sync app, eject ISO and VHD mounts from their right-click menu, or detach a VHD in Disk Management with Detach VHD. Uninstalling an app usually removes its drive, but restart afterward in case Windows keeps the letter until then.

A quick way to tell what created an unfamiliar drive: right-click it, choose Properties, and look at the file system and the Hardware tab. Cloud and virtual drives show their app's name or a virtual disk type, while physical drives list the real hardware model.

Drives shown as locked

A drive with a padlock icon is encrypted with BitLocker and locked. It is not empty, so Hide empty drives does not hide it. Double-click it and enter its password or recovery key to unlock it. If it is an old drive you no longer need, unlock it first and copy anything important, then format it or turn off BitLocker from Manage BitLocker. Never format a locked drive you are unsure about; the data cannot be recovered without the key afterward.

Drives encrypted on another PC need that PC's recovery key; it is often saved in the Microsoft account of whoever set it up, at account.microsoft.com under Devices and recovery keys.

Phones, cameras and network locations in This PC

Phones and cameras connected by USB appear in This PC as devices, not drives, and Hide empty drives does not affect them; they disappear when unplugged. Network locations you added with Add a network location show under Network locations and can be removed by right-clicking and choosing Delete, which deletes only the shortcut. Mapped network drives appear with letters; right-click and Disconnect removes them. Media servers and smart TVs on your network may appear under Network; turning off network discovery for public networks keeps them out of view when you travel.

For phones, the Windows Photos app's Import, or the phone's own sync app, is a more reliable way to move photos than browsing the device in This PC, and avoids the device lingering there after use.

Stop low disk space warnings on hidden partitions

Low disk space warnings for a recovery partition stop as soon as its letter is removed, since Windows only warns about lettered drives. For real data drives, the warning is a useful prompt to clean up; our guide to turning off the low disk space warning shows how to silence it if you prefer, and our guide to finding what fills your storage helps free space properly.

If a warning names a drive you do not recognize, check Disk Management first; it is very often a recovery partition that picked up a letter.

Hiding a drive is not security

Hiding drives in File Explorer only changes what is displayed. Anyone can type the drive letter in the address bar, and any app can still read the drive. To actually protect files, use separate user accounts with their own folders, file permissions, or BitLocker encryption on the drive. For a shared family PC, hiding a data drive from children's File Explorer is a reasonable tidiness step, but standard accounts and folder permissions are what really keep things safe.

For a drive that must stay private from other people on the PC, BitLocker To Go on a USB drive, or BitLocker on an internal data drive, gives real protection: without the password or key, the files cannot be read, whatever File Explorer shows.

Hiding drives on a child's account

On a family PC, hiding a parent's data drive from a child's File Explorer reduces accidental deletions and curiosity. Set the NoDrives value in the child's account (it is per user under HKEY_CURRENT_USER), or use the per-user Group Policy on Pro. Combine it with a standard account, so the child cannot change the setting back, and with folder permissions on anything truly private.

Remember to test by signing in as the child; per-user settings only apply in the account where you set them.

If the child's account is managed through Family Safety, combine this with screen time and app limits for a family PC that is both tidy and safe.

"You need to format the disk before you can use it"

If Windows shows this message for a drive that has files on it, do not click Format. It means Windows cannot read the drive's file system, which happens with drives from other systems (Linux, some cameras), drives that were unplugged mid-write, and drives starting to fail. Click Cancel, unplug and reconnect it, try another port or PC, and run chkdsk X: /f on it only if it is a Windows drive and the files are backed up elsewhere. For important files on a failing drive, stop using it and get recovery help; every write reduces the chance of getting the files back.

Cameras and phones sometimes format cards in their own way; if a camera card triggers this prompt on the PC, put it back in the camera and copy the photos off with the camera's own USB connection or app first.

Check drive health while you tidy

While looking at your drives, it is worth checking their health. Open Settings > System > Storage > Advanced storage settings > Disks & volumes, select each drive and choose Properties; NVMe SSDs show estimated remaining life, available spare and temperature. For other drives, the maker's tool reports similar details. A drive with warnings should be backed up right away and replaced soon. Our guide to backing up your files covers the options.

Make a habit of checking health once or twice a year, and whenever a drive starts making new noises, slows down sharply or shows errors when copying.

Windows 10 differences

On Windows 10, Folder Options opens from File Explorer's View tab > Options > Change folder and search options. The Hide empty drives checkbox, Disk Management, the policies and the NoDrives value all work the same. Windows 10 reached end of support in October 2025, but these settings continue to work on PCs that still run it.

The Disks & volumes page in Settings is more limited on Windows 10; use Disk Management there for drive letters, and the drive maker's tool for health information.

If you upgraded from Windows 10, hidden-drive policies and NoDrives values carry over to Windows 11, which explains drives that are mysteriously missing after an upgrade.

Undo everything on this page

• Hide empty drives: clear the checkbox in Folder Options, or click Restore Defaults.
• Removed drive letter: Disk Management, Change Drive Letter and Paths, Add.
• Hide these specified drives policy: set it to Not configured.
• NoDrives value: delete it from the Policies\Explorer key.
• Disabled card reader or DVD drive: Device Manager, right-click, Enable device.
• Show drive letters: check it again in Folder Options.

Restart Windows Explorer or sign out and back in after undoing a policy or registry change so File Explorer picks it up.

Make one change at a time and check the result, so you always know which setting did what.

For IT admins: hiding drives on managed PCs

Policies. Hide these specified drives in My Computer and Prevent access to drives from My Computer are under User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > File Explorer, with fixed drive combinations; for custom combinations, deploy the NoDrives and NoViewOnDrive registry values. Removable storage access policies under System > Removable Storage Access control USB use properly, rather than just hiding drives.

Images. Make sure recovery and system partitions have no drive letters in your images; diskpart scripts in task sequences can remove stray letters after deployment.

Users. Explain hidden drives in onboarding notes; users who cannot find a mapped share they were told about is a common support ticket after such policies roll out.

Hiding empty drives: frequently asked questions

Ethan's uncle's This PC now shows exactly two drives: his system drive and his data drive. The card reader still works the moment he inserts a camera card, and his recovery partition is still there, invisible and intact, for the day he needs it. The difference between hiding and deleting was the whole lesson: File Explorer is just a view, and changing the view is safe, while formatting the wrong partition is not. Tidy the view, leave the partitions alone, and This PC becomes a clear picture of the storage you actually use.

Revision note. Written October 2, 2026, rewriting our 2016 guide to cover card slots, recovery partitions and safe hiding in Windows 11. May This PC show only what you use.