Disable CD ROM drives

[Ciaran]

I want to disable the cd rom drives on my winxp pro computer. I have an admin account.
I tried disabling them in the BIOS (by setting them to "not installed&quot but windows xp could still access them.

Taking out the cable to the motherboard is not an option because i need to be able to access them myself (a restart isnt a problem but opening up the case is).

 

[daviesj]

This might be worth a try ?

This setting allows you to control which drives are visible in My Computer and Explorer. It is possible to hide all drives or just selected ones.

Open your registry and find or create the key below.

User Key: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\PoliciesExplorer]
System Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\PoliciesExplorer]
Value Name: NoDrives
Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value)

The "NoDrives" value uses a 32-bit word to define local and network drive visibility for each logical drive in the computer. The lower 26 bits of the 32-bit word correspond to drive letters A through Z. Drives are visible when set to 0 and hidden when set to 1.

If your not happy working in Hex, add these decimal numbers to hide the drive(s):

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

For example to hide drive A and drive D, you would add 1 (A) + 8 (D) which means the value should be set to "9".

To disable all the drives set the value to "67108863".

Restart Windows for the change to take effect.

 

[Ciaran]

thankyou for the help but someone could still type the drive name in explorer and access the cd rom drives. I need to be able to stop any access to them.

 

[Mulga]

Below is from the XP help and Support

To change user permissions for Removable Storage
Open Removable Storage.
In the console tree, right-click the specific item you want to change user permissions for, and then click Properties.
In the Properties dialog box, click the Security tab.
Click the name of the user or group whose permissions you want to change, and then do one of the following:
To change specific permissions, select or clear the Allow and Deny check boxes for each of the three levels of permissions: Use, Modify, and Control, as applicable.
To deny all permissions, click Remove.
Notes

To open Removable Storage, click Start and then click Control Panel. Double-click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management. In the console tree, double-click Storage and then double-click Removable Storage.
You can apply user permissions to libraries, to media pools and their media, or to Removable Storage as a whole.
All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.