If you want to quickly access the contents of a hard drive, you can pin a shortcut of the drive to the taskbar.
You can create a shortcut with the contents of a disk to the root of the disk. This means that you can create a shortcut on the taskbar that, for example, directly opens the contents of the “C:\” drive. Another drive is also possible, for example the “D:\” drive where files such as downloads may be stored.
A shortcut on the taskbar is always useful. It saves a significant amount of time to directly open the shortcut in the taskbar, instead of first opening Windows Explorer and then the desired drive.
In Windows 11 or 10, you cannot create a shortcut to a drive directly on the taskbar. To do this you must go through certain steps. You can read how this works in this article.
Pin hard drive shortcut to the taskbar
To get started, open Windows Explorer. Left-click on “This PC” and then right-click on the drive you want to create a shortcut for on the taskbar.
First click on the menu “show more options” (for Windows 11) and then click “Create shortcut.
You will now see the message that a shortcut cannot be created here. Would you like to place a shortcut on the desktop? Click “Yes”.
Go to the desktop. Here you will see a shortcut to the hard drive. Right-click on it and click “Properties”.
In the “Target:” field, type “explorer.exe” with a space and then the drive letter. Below you can see an example.
I now recommend that you also check the hard drive change icon. If you type “explorer.exe” in the target field, it will be icon replaced with a Windows Explorer icon. It is then no longer clear that it is a reference to a hard drive.
Click on the “Change icon” button. In the “Search this file for icons” field, type: imageres.dll and confirm with an ENTER key.
You can now choose from different hard drive icons. Make your choice for the suitable icon. This icon appears in the taskbar as a shortcut to the hard drive.
Click “OK”. Click “Apply” again and then “OK”.
Right-click the desktop shortcut to the hard drive again. In the menu, click on “Show more options” (Windows 11) and then on “Pin to taskbar”.
You will now see a shortcut to the hard drive in the taskbar. If you click on it, the contents of this disk will be opened via Windows Explorer.
Read on to find out what else you can pin to the taskbar:
- Create a Word, Excel or PowerPoint shortcut in the taskbar.
- Pin Windows Explorer to the taskbar in Windows 11/10.
- Add Task Manager to the taskbar menu.
- 4 ways to pin a program to the taskbar.
- Launch multiple apps with a single shortcut in Windows.
- Customize the taskbar in Windows 11? This is how!
- Add Disable button to the taskbar in Windows.
I hope this helped you. Thank you for reading!