Backing up drivers

cormie

Hi,
Some of you may remember my ordeal with Acer/MicroAid and my new laptop with the sound issue. Well, it turns out, that it only happened because I formatted the HD and installed my copy of XP Pro Retail. It came with XP Home OEM installed on it and all the drivers pre installed. So apparantly the installation of XP Pro Retail got rid of all the drivers and even though I installed the drivers on the utility CD, something was still missing. I gave it back to acer and they sent it back with it re-done the way it was when I bought it, all the crap that's usually included on an OEM install, but no glitchy sound.

So now I want to re-install XP Pro Retail but I don't want the glitch in the sound to re-appear. Is there any way to back up drivers or is there any way to tell what particular driver is needed? I reinstalled drivers when I had the problem first but none of them worked

Any feedback appreciated, thanks!

aidan_walsh

You can see all your driver details by right-clicking on My Computer, going into Manage, selecting the Device Manager, finding the device in the tree, right-clicking on it and going into its Properties page and clicking on the Driver tab. If you wanted to be really hardcore about it, clicking on the Driver Details button there will show you where the files are, and what they are called.

cormie

Thanks for the help.. but what would I do with that? Should I just copy all driver files and dump them into the same location when I re-install or will they need to be installed and not just dumped there?

paddy

What exactly do you need in Xp pro, that Xp home doesn't offer you?

cormie

To be honest, nothing really, I just like having a fresh install of XP on a new machine rather than having all the OEM excess crapology that I don't need and wont be using:o

Voodoo2

You will need a programme to back up all the drivers, I use a program called Driver Genius, It backs up all drivers for your hardware! with a click of a button, also looks for updates!!!! If your looking for a "Freeware" I can help you out,

irlrobins

Voodoo2 wrote:

If your looking for a "Freeware" I can help you out,

I hope ur not offering a cracked or warez version.......

cormie

Does anyone know if this will solve the issue of the sound error if I reinstall XP and backup the drivers so?

Blogoffmen

Wich sound chip is it?
Give me your exact acer model and i link you the correct drivers m8!
Also try windows update wich might'n be working on your xp-pro with
genuine validation tool and could give trouble for future updates...

has your xp-pro SP1 or SP2 or none?

cormie

Hi, thanks a mill. This is my laptop:

Aspire 5021WLMi AMD Turion ML28 1.6 (35W), Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition, 15.4" WXGA Acer CrystalBrite, 128MB ATI Mobility Radeon X700 graphics, 512MB (2*256) RAM, 100GB HDD, DVD-Dual RW - Double Layer, LiIon Battery, Gigabit Ethernet & wireless 802.11g , 6-in-1 card reader, Acer GridVista, Acer Arcade LX.A4605.055 or .077

More Info:)

Actually, Windows Update is the one thing I didn't do I think! Maybe that could hold the answer, I was using Service Pack 2 installed from a direct download (as in, I have a SP2 install shell). I have a genuine XP Pro too so that shouldn't give any trouble I wouldn't think.

Thanks for your help!

Blogoffmen

your realtek audio/sound drivers should be there:
http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/as_3020_5020.html

also on windows update select "custom" there might be a windows driver update...

regards

cormie

Thanks for the help, appreciated:)

Voodoo2

irlrobins wrote:

I hope ur not offering a cracked or warez version.......

Its not "Freeware" as such, its def not cracked or Warez the software is free to OEM's so all you do is get in contact with them and they will send you a free copy if you are registered for VAT etc!

cormie

Blogoffmen wrote:

your realtek audio/sound drivers should be there:
http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/as_3020_5020.html

also on windows update select "custom" there might be a windows driver update...

regards

Hi again, I've just gotten around to reinstalling XP Pro now and I'm ready to do the drivers on the above link, however, I do not know how to tell which I should go for out of all of them

MS Windows XP Drivers/Utilities
80211abg Foxconn Wireless 802.11abg Atheros 4.1.0.132
Broadcom Wireless 802.11g 3.100.46.0
Acer GridVista 2.23.0304
Realtek AC97 Audio Driver 5.10.00.5990
TI7421 5in1 Card Reader 7.7.0.262
AMD Athlon64 CPU Driver 1.1.0.18
Acer eManager 1.0.27.40
Realtek 8139 & 8169 Lan Driver 5.620.1202.2004
Launch Manager 1.0.8.3
Agere Modem Driver 2.1.47
Synaptics TouchPad Driver 7.12.2.0
ATi VGA Driver 8.103-050208a-022509C



MS Windows XP 64Bit Drivers/Utilities for Aspire 5020, only
AMBIT G (Broadcom solution) Wireless LAN driver (T60H906.00)" for XP-64BIT v3.100.64.0
Acer GridVista for WinXP 2.28.0505
Realtek AC97 Audio Driver 5.10.00.5820
TI 7x21 FlashMedia/SD Host controller driver -Win64 2.0.0.0
Mobile AMD Processor Driver for Windows XP-64bit v 1.2.2.0
Acer eManager 1.0.32.48
Foxconn Agere MDC1.5 Modem WinXP 64bit Driver for ezDock V.2.1.53
Realtek 8139 & 8169 Lan Driver for Windows XP/2K/64bit OS 5.621.0304.2005
Launch Manager for for Win64 1.0.8.3
Foxconn Conexant MDC1.5 Modem WinXP/2K Driver for ATI SB400 /Win64 7.28.00.00
Synaptics TouchPad Driver for Win64 v8.0.11.0
ATi VGA Driver 8.132-050503a1-023557C
Bios 1.08 or higher is necessary for Windows XP64 on the Aspire 5020

Any feedback appreciated, thanks:) Oh by the way, yep, the stuttering is back since I reinstalled XP pro so I just hope there is a way to fix it now:o

Blogoffmen

Windows XP (32bit) your win xp pro

Realtek AC97 Audio Driver 5.10.00.5990
may aswell try other drivers like AMD Athlon64 CPU Driver etc. aswell

rogue-entity

There are two ways to backup the drivers, the first is to go to the drivers details page for your devices and then backup all the files, leaving them in a convenient folder. But you will not be able to install them without the inf file for your hardware.

The second method is to open a new search (start > search) and select "C:\Windows\Inf" as the directory to look in and type oem* as the name of the file. You will get a load of INF files with names like oem0inf oem1.inf. These are the inf files for drivers not included with windows. Open them and will will list the name of the hardware for which it is for and the files to copy and where they are copied to. Copy ALL of these plus all of the driver files you want to backup.
When you want to reinstall the hardware driver, you point windows to the folder that has the INFs and the driver files, windows will do the rest.

cormie

Thanks rogue. I actually got it sorted by downloading one of the drivers from the links above. Laptop is back to good shape with no problems. I'm pretty sure I posted that already, maybe it was in a pm to blogoff, yeah I think it was:o

thanks again everyone:)