Drive not showing in My Computer

Hello everybody

I'm new to Windows 7 (Ultimate) and like to have a machine that runs nice and fast with no unessential items running in the background. Last night I did a bit of tweaking (mostly in gpedit.msc) and went a step too far, but I'm not sure which step I need to undo and haven't been able to find a solution in a 4 hour google session.

When I click on My Computer, the cupboard is bare. I have a 500gb drive partitioned into C:\ and D:\ and a DVD drive E:\. The right pane is empty, and when I plug in a USB drive it doesn't show either. When I click on libraries, I can manually enter C:\ or D:\ in the address bar but it's a bit inconvenient. I usually use Total Commander rather than Windows explorer, but it's been difficult to set up my downloads location etc as they don't appear in the available options. In device manager the disk is showing.

Self inflicted, I know, but I would be very grateful if anyone could come up with a (probably simple and I'm just missing it) solution.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Have you considered a System Restore to a time prior to your tweaking?

It isn't foolproof, but not far from it in my experience.

If System Restore doesn't work, then you'll need a Repair Install.

Win7 will not tolerate tweaking like this beyond normal system settings. It will always come back to bite you.

Hmm, seems like a rub it out and start again. Shame really, because I've got everything working very well apart from this one little problem.

I had feared that this may have been the answer. Thanks for confirming. Next time, I'll keep on re-booting and checking when I tweak to try and identify the culprit.

Thanks again.

Other tips for getting a purrfect reinstall: re-install windows 7