Dell Drivers

joroma · 27 Mar 2007 at 22:22

Just spent most of the day installing a now OS on a Dell PC and most of the time was spent installing the 3 com Ethernet, Video and Audio drivers!
Having installed them is there an easy way I can copy them to a CD to avoid all the hassle next time I do a reinstall?

teaboy5 · 27 Mar 2007 at 23:36

Rather simple, go to dell support download the drivers and save them to cd

Also they should be in the root of c:\dell\

joroma · 27 Mar 2007 at 23:49

I tried that but the driver I downloaded on my working pc which I had to copy to disk then install on the DELL machine didn't work! I couldn't access the net with the DELL machine as one of the missing drivers was needed to connect to the internet!

I'd like to do a simple back up of the current installed drivers to a CD.

The_KiD · 28 Mar 2007 at 00:01

When you spent 3 hours doing it where did you end up getting them from?

Get them from the same place and burn them to cd?

joroma · 28 Mar 2007 at 09:26

In the end I actually got them off a DELL cd

but to be honest it wasn't that easy and I thought I could make my life easier in future by backing up/copying the installed drivers but maybe not

Meatball · 28 Mar 2007 at 09:45

They're likely out of date on the Dell CD and website. You could have used Aida32 to identify the hardware name and model so you could get the drivers direct from the manufacturer's website.

The_KiD · 28 Mar 2007 at 09:49

Backing up installed drivers aint so easy as they don't just use one file.

You can find out the files they use by Going in to Device manager, opening the properties for each device, then looking at the driver details.

lokkers · 28 Mar 2007 at 14:44

create a second partition on the disk and keep the drivers on there for the future.

Every machine i build in the office I do just that. They are also on our network, so can be put onto the machine using a USB key.

Chopper · 28 Mar 2007 at 21:09

Bah i hate Dell and even i have to admit there driver system is amazing...

Step 1: Go to Dell website, and navigate to Support and Download Drivers...
Step 2: Enter Service Tag...
Step 3: Download all drivers applicable to your machine, the specific hardware details you can get from the Support and Warranty section, where it will detail the hardware configuration and components that were shipped to you...
Step 4: Run all the downloaded exectables and have them extract to C:\Dell\
Step 5: Burn the C:\Dell\ directory to CD or create a slipstreamed Windows CD.

There you go, five easy steps, come on man, think about it, not hard really...

joroma · 28 Mar 2007 at 21:56

Thanks. I just thought there might be a quicker or easier way!!

Chopper · 29 Mar 2007 at 09:25

Just curious how could it get much easier?

You download a few specific files, extract them, and then burn the to CD.

Sounds pretty easy to me, short of Dell sending a little man to my house to do it for me, whilst another fans me and passes me chilled glasses of lemonade on the couch, im not sure its gets any simpler?