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Retrieving drivers from hard drive

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by tonydee

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I just upgraded the hard drive on an old computer that was given to me. I need the drivers for the integrated video and audio. I don't have the original disks and I can't find the manufacturer (Virtucon Systems) on the web.

Since I still have the original hard drive which still works and does have the proper drivers installed, can I retrieve the files I need from that hard drive, put them on a floppy, and then install the drivers on the new hard drive?

5 replies

by daleking

You should be able to do this, you can also hook the old drive up as a secondary drive temporarily and when ask for the drivers point it to the location on the old hard drive (which if you only have one hard drive now the new drive would be D drive.) Remember to set the drive to Slave if you are using it on the same controller as the new drive. If you are using a CD Rom drive as a master on the Secondary controller, you can temporarily undo the cable and the electrical plug and plug them intothe old hard drive...(the drive need not be installed in the system to do this) Just have it close enough to the system to properly connect the cable and electrical supply. After you install the correct drivers - remove the old hard drive connect the CD Drive back again and when starting up the computer all should work correctly, I do this because a lot of times you can't fit all the files on a floppy disk.

by tonydee

Thank you for the help. I wish there was another choice between Acceptable and Unacceptable. Your answer was a step in the right direction, but didn't solve my problem. It may work in some situations where only a single file or 2 is required.
I this case, several files were required and found in more than one directory. Please read the response from TheChas.

by thechas

I have not had very good luck trying to extract drivers from an existing installation.

Most drivers add files to several Windows folders;
Create and edit registry keys;
and, may even add statements to the old system files (Autoexec.bat, config.sys, sys.ini, win.ini)

I normally identify the specific hardware, and download the latest drivers from either the board mfgs, or the chipset mafgs.

There is a driver backup utility available from here
http://www.jermar.com/
WinDriverBackup issuppossed to backup your driver files.

I have not tried it myself.

For driver resources, I use:
www.motherboards.org
www.driverguide.com

If all else fails, I have had good luck using search engines.
Search on the card or chip mfgs name with +drivers added.

Chas

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