Extracting hardware drivers...

humaxf1

We've all been there before-->Windows has to be reinstalled, but you don't have access to a driver CD and/or the PC manufacturers support section on their website is BRUTAL or support for a particular model is discontinued.

Is there any way to extract driver files for sound, video, NIC etc. I've seen ads for programs that claim to do what it says on the tin, but has anyone had good success with a particular program for extraction?

TIA

carveone

humaxf1 wrote: »

Is there any way to extract driver files for sound, video, NIC etc. I've seen ads for programs that claim to do what it says on the tin, but has anyone had good success with a particular program for extraction?

TIA

Would a suggestion to trawl the .inf (c:\windows\inf\blah.inf and blah.pnf) by hand be taking the piss? :rolleyes:

Well, it gets you the base minimum...

Conor.

eringobragh

Easier then that i used a program a couple of times called "windriverghost"

http://www.tucows.com/preview/335784

Its a 15 day trial (No restrictions ) and extracts whatever drivers you need, Great little program..

mukki

this is the best way to install drivers

download all driverpacks (google them)
extract them all to a folder on your pc
burn the folder to a dvd, but the dvd is far to slow to use so....
make an image of the dvd
install a standalone cd emulator
copy the whole lot to a 2gig usb key


i rebuild pcs every day, and with my 2 gig usb key i dont need vga, chipset,raid, audio, network or wifi drivers for almost any pc. i can even call to a house with no internet access and no reinstall cds and completely rebuid the pc legally and quickly


i might put the image and the cd emulator into a a rar and make a torrent if people are interested.

Capt'n Midnight

mukki wrote:

i might put the image and the cd emulator into a a rar and make a torrent if people are interested.

No i386 folder / no full slipstreamed folder either
microsoft license is very picky about backup media

Slipstreaming is nice , to make it legal what would be really nice is to separate the result into two halves, one that contains files on the original windows CD, which can't be shared and the other that contains the downloaded drivers and update config files.

then people could use their existing media and combine it with freely downloadable drivers. (and then you might have the problem of different install media. )

of course you would have to look up the licenses on every driver in case it didn't allow you to copy them


to ID which files have changed there are many ways,
one is to copy the XP cd to a folder, take the archive attrib off
Attrib \xp\*.* -R -A /s

Then make sure the files on the USB have the atrrtb on
attrib USB:\*.* +R +A /s

then copy them to the XP folder, but only overwrite older files

xcopy \usb \xp\*.* /s /h /r /D /y

now any changed files in the folder will be Read only / attrib on, the original files will be deletable.

Dir \xp /s /aa /b will give you a list of files not on the original CD


del \xp /s not sure if this will just delete the original XP files

finally
attrib \xp\*.* -R /s to make remove the read only