Installing windows on an unknown machine

Raymond Lin · 4 Apr 2007 at 18:49

A friend ask me to reinstall his windows tonight, no problem there. Except its a DIY machine and I have no idea what parts he has in it so no idea what drivers to use. I've reinstalled windows on my machine loads of time but i know and have the drivers ready for all the components.

What would you do in my shoes?

Reinstall windows ? It'll boot up in 16 colours and then what do I do?

I can run CPU-Z to find out the mobo, how do i know graphics card, sound card, NIC without taking it apart and take photos and ask you guys?

xirokx · 4 Apr 2007 at 18:57

get a freeware prog called "everesthome" it will list the name and version of all components so to explore that idea :

write the name of :

a) mobo
b) gfx card
c) monitor
d) sound card
e) modem
f) router if modem is not being used.

thats about it I believe...

just to be 100% sure , download the drivers first then do a fresh install so you know its just a case of pointing the freshly installed windows to the cd drive

if the pc is not that old i.e less then 1 year old it WINDOWS will pick up the majority of drivers...just ensure you have at least the mobo, gfx card, sound card and router drivers and you will be OK

good luck...

P.S. ensure you have an active internet connection before doing anything and that you have the username and password settings available for the net so that in case you cannot find anything people here will help you in a flash ...

Jaaay · 4 Apr 2007 at 18:59

Crap Cleaner (CCleaner) tells you some stuff i think, its free:
http://www.ccleaner.com/

semi-pro waster · 4 Apr 2007 at 19:19

I've used Aida32 with some success before when trying to identify random stuff, it is free although they have stopped updating it but a quick Google search will find a working copy for download.

artaxerxes · 4 Apr 2007 at 19:30

Belarc Adviser might be just the ticket. It will list everything about the machine. Including the keys for installed software - which might be handy.

Run that just now whilst the proper drivers are in place! I am not sure how well it will work on a bare install.

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

Trigger · 4 Apr 2007 at 19:49

xirokx said:
if the pc is not that old i.e less then 1 year old it WINDOWS will pick up the majority of drivers...just ensure you have at least the mobo, gfx card, sound card and router drivers and you will be OK

That's rubbish- I've had windows install drivers automatically for an 8 year old PC just yesterday. Infact, I went to install drivers I had downloaded only to be told that windows had already installed newer ones

Windows does seem to have a very good driver base and you actually stand more chance of it automatically installing drivers for older hardware rather than newer hardware

@OP: TBH, I wouldn't worry about it- see what drivers windows installs and then install the drivers which it doesn't. As long as you can access the net in some way, shape or form, preferably on a second machine then you should be fine. Just a tip: use an XP disk with SP2 slipstreamed into it as you'll stand more chance of windows installing drivers for you