How to lock a drive in windows 7 without using software

Many of people don’t know how to lock a drive in windows 7 without using software (third party controllers). There are so many ways to lock a drive here I have given a simple procedure to lock the drive without accessing any software.

Step 1:

First open Run command by pressing “Windows symbol + R”. Then you type “gpedit.msc” in the run command. i.e., “Group Policy Editor”. By using this we can able to edit local group policies like altering the permissions of user control.

Step 2:

After hitting the command then we can access the “Local Group Policy Editor” window. By using this we can change configurations of the computer and as well as user.


1) Computer Configuration

2) User Configuration

Step 3:

Now you select “User Configuration” to modify the drive permissions.
Go to “user configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Explorer”
After clicking these, there are several lists of the things we appear. In that you select,
“Prevent access to drive from my computer”

Step 4:

Now we have to double click on “Prevent access to drive from my computer”. Then one window appears named “prevent access to drive from my computer “

Step 5:

In that window there are three options. Those are,


1) Not Configured

2) Enabled

3) Disable



By default this is marked as “Not Configured”.

If you want to lock the drive you need to select “Enable” option. And in bottom of the window you will have some options. On which drive you need to lock, select the drive and click on “Apply” then click on “OK”.
Now if you want to open the locked drive, that is shown “restrictions” window saying “this operation has been cancelled due to restrictions please contact your system administrator”.

Step 6:

For unlocking the drive you have to follow the same procedure and at last you select “Disabled” option.