Driver Utility

Clarifications

You can open Windows' Device Manager and manually find out what drivers each hardware component is using. Device Properties > Driver Tab > Driver Details > Driver Files. You can backup those drivers out of Windows\System32 and then restore them after you format.

but it will have to be installed and registerd before using it on the PC and then again when you have rebuilt. The easiest and cheapest way is to download your drivers and save them to USB or CD.

Driver Magician 3.32

http://www.download3k.com/Driver-Magician/Download-Free-DriverMagician.exe.html

If it is a Off the Shelf System like Dell, HP, Gateway and so on they come with a Recovery Disc or Partition which is a Slipstreamed Copy of Windows that Includes all of the drivers.

If it is a White Box then the maker will have given you all of the various hardware Install Media and these will have the required Drivers on them. Typically the required ones are Sound if you have some form of AC97 Sound Adapter, Video, LAN and Modem Drivers.

Just about everything else should work with the Default Drivers supplied by M$ on their OS Install Media. Even then M$ provides drivers for most Sound Blaster Audio Cards, Some NVidia and ATI Video Chip Sets and the more common LAN and Modems. Where you may run into issues is if you are using hardware released after your copy of the OS was released typically it's only Realtech Drivers both Audio and LAN and the high end Video Drivers that are required to allow you to get onto the Windows/Microsoft Update Servers and update the Hardware Drivers from there.

Of course external items like Printers, Scanners and so on require you to install their drivers and associated software but these are not necessary to get the unit reloaded and working.

Also if you have a Realtech Audio Device make sure to install those Sound Drivers [b]Before[/b] connecting to the Windows Update Severs because if you do not do this you will be unable to install the Sound Drivers after you connect to the Windows Update Servers because they are not Digitally Signed.

Col