Recovering drivers from previous installation?

Yesterday I bought a new computer and I've been setting it up since this morning. The hard drive came with windows 7 home premium (x64) installed, but I decided to instead install windows 7 ultimate (x64) - this is what I'm currently using. Unfortunately, there were some drivers that were installed that I need in this installation. I only notice because the computer doesn't have the ethernet drivers, so I'm only able to connect to the internet via wireless. There are other drivers missing as well, but I'm not yet seeing the effects.

I still have the Windows.old folder with the previous installation, which has the drivers. Is there any way to copy the necessary ones over? I tried the options for updating driver software through device manager with the path set to System32\drivers of the old installation, but it didn't find anything.

mowwwalker

Posted 2012-10-07T01:53:11.977

Reputation: 1 444

Within the Device Manager try to update from MS instead of local diver copy. – climenole – 2012-10-07T02:01:58.160

It will be faster and better to just download the most up-to-date drivers for the hardware, even if it means downloading it on another computer and copying them over on a flash drive. – Darth Android – 2012-10-07T02:02:09.770

@climenole, I tried that as well. – mowwwalker – 2012-10-07T02:02:50.097

@DarthAndroid, How do I know where to find the drivers? I couldn't find a definitive model number for the ethernet controller. – mowwwalker – 2012-10-07T02:05:08.847

OK Walkerneo: so check my answer. The easiest solution imho. :) – climenole – 2012-10-07T02:09:53.953

@Walkerneo Worst-case, if you view hardware properties in the device manager, go to the Details tab and select Matching device ID. The value will contain VEN_XXXX&DEV_YYYY where the X's and Y's are 4-digit hex-codes. Google "ven XXXX dev YYYY" and look at results to see what brand & model they correspond to. – Darth Android – 2012-10-08T14:20:28.463

Answers

Update and install the required drivers from Ma-Config Web site:

Find appropriate drivers at Ma Config

This web site ask you to install a Browser plugin (certified by Kaspersky) and a Service to detect the required drivers. Start the detection, select the WHQL drivers, download and install the divers.

N.B. Install one driver at the time and create a restore point before.

climenole

Posted 2012-10-07T01:53:11.977

Reputation: 3 180

Wow, beautiful site and very helpful. Only qualm is that it's in French! – mowwwalker – 2012-10-09T03:08:31.993

There's an english version of this site. Isn't? – climenole – 2012-10-09T03:25:20.477

@climenole I append /en to the end of the url and it does switch to english http://www.ma-config.com/en

– Vitim.us – 2014-01-14T01:58:14.927

In your situation where windows can't find a driver, it's best to look at the PCI ID for that device. Open device manager and locate the unknown driver, right click on it to select properties and go to the details tab. In the drop down menu, navigate to Hardware Ids. For example, an intel Gigabit connection will look like this

PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1503

Then go to the PCI Database and enter your device ID information to figure out what the actual hardware might be by entering your vendor and device number (8086 and 1503 in this example, respectively). From there you can search the internet for drivers from the manufacturer.

Bryan

Posted 2012-10-07T01:53:11.977

Reputation: 710

What is all this talk about downloading programs and browser plugins to locate drivers? Go to the manufacturers website and download them from there. Keep in mind they may not have drivers for the Ultimate version of Windows 7 - something that you should have checked up on before installing.

Scandalist

Posted 2012-10-07T01:53:11.977

Reputation: 2 767

2Drivers compatible with Windows 7 home premium will work with Windows 7 ultimate. – Canadian Luke – 2012-10-07T03:36:07.067