Hard Drive access?

Is there a way to access the hard drive even though the harddrive is not on displayed on monitor?Other than going into finder preferences and having it show on screen?

Maybe I could be more clear with the question.
I like to hide the icons from screen now and then but it gets frustrating when I need to access HD. Only way I know how to do it is go to finder pref and unhide it. Is there a way to bring it up with the keyboard or one click with the mouse?

If you are on the Desktop, with Finder in focus, just use Command+N to pull up a new Finder window.

DOH!....I forgot all about that, I found that accidently a few months ago too. Thank you.