windows 10 - Can I mark a Hard Drive as non-removable?

I have replaced the DVD Drive in my Laptop with a S-ATA Hard Drive, which works well. However, Windows believes that the hard drive is removable and lists it e.g. in the "Safely remove hardware and eject media" popup, or for any applications that show a list of removable drives.

Is there a way to have Windows treat the hard drive like a non-removable/fixed drive?

Answer

Tested on Windows 10 with the standard issue Microsoft issued chipset.

• Launch "regedit".


• Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\storahci\Parameters\Device, create a new REG_MULTI_SZ. Label it TreatAsInternalPort.


• In the "Values" box, enter the port values which you would like to mark as non-removable, i.e. enter '0' for port '0'

I believe this setting is also dependent on your chipset/drive controller. As such, a different chipset maker might have a different registry entry for this configuration.