Missing Drives in My Computer and Windows Explorer

When you view My Computer or Windows Explorer, some or all of your drives may be missing. When you view Device Manager, the missing drives may be displayed, and you may be able to gain access to the drives by clicking Start, clicking Run, typing the drive letter in the Open box, and then clicking OK. The drives are accessible at a command prompt or in Safe mode, and can be access by ScanDisk and Disk Defragmenter.

This behavior can occur if the PowerToys TweakUI tool is installed and configured to hide one or more of your drives.

To resolve this behavior, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
2. Double-click TweakUI.
3. On the My Computer tab, click to select the check boxes of the drives that are currently hidden.
4. Click Close, and then restart your computer.

Windows Millennium

This issue can occur if you install TweakUI in Windows 98, and then upgrade to Windows Millennium. You can also install TweakUI on Windows Millennium.

Windows 98

If the TweakUI tool is not installed, install it from the Windows 98 CD-ROM and then follow steps 1-4. For information about how to install the TweakUI tool, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Windows 2000

This resolution may also work in Win 2000, if TweakUi was installed prior to upgrading the OS.

The TweakUI tool can also be used to hide mapped network drives.