Sarka Posted October 1, 2006 Share Posted October 1, 2006 Hullo all, I am going to reformat my PC! I have moved all of my documents to my External Harddrive and I've got my Windows XP disk at the ready. When I spoke to my computing teacher about it he said that I would have to also get drivers - for my CDs, my graphics card (I think...) and the such. However, I wasn't listening very much. Could anyone tell me everything I need to have to reinstall everything properly. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caris Posted October 1, 2006 Share Posted October 1, 2006 Just have the disks you got with the PC/Componants. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarka Posted October 1, 2006 Author Share Posted October 1, 2006 Just have the disks you got with the PC/Componants. I believe either: A) Dell don't give you disks or B) I lost all the disks... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bogbas Posted October 1, 2006 Share Posted October 1, 2006 Do dell use restoration disks? Because usually that's easier to use than a manual format/re-install. It basically formats the PC and installs the operating system with all the drivers. Then again if you have changed something major in the computer (mainly motherboard or video card) that won't probably work too well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginger_Chris Posted October 1, 2006 Share Posted October 1, 2006 backup all the drivers manually on your portable hard drive. things like most recent nvidia/ati drivers, printers etc. most things work pretty much ok. Just make sure you make a note of passwords and details needed to connect to the internet. Make sure EVERYTHING important is backed up. saved game files for games etc. I reformat about once every 6 months to keep everything uncluttered, and everytime i miss something. anyway good luck. (ps while your reformatting anyway ifyou have a spare 15Gb or so you might like to try linux :P) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarka Posted October 1, 2006 Author Share Posted October 1, 2006 backup all the drivers manually on your portable hard drive. things like most recent nvidia/ati drivers, printers etc. most things work pretty much ok. Just make sure you make a note of passwords and details needed to connect to the internet. Make sure EVERYTHING important is backed up. saved game files for games etc. I reformat about once every 6 months to keep everything uncluttered, and everytime i miss something. anyway good luck. (ps while your reformatting anyway ifyou have a spare 15Gb or so you might like to try linux :P) Where do I find all the drivers? Are they in a folder somewhere? Also, I am going to install Linux, my computing teacher suggested ubunto but as it was very good for newbies - but I dunno, I'd probably like something a bit more exciting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Odwin Posted October 1, 2006 Share Posted October 1, 2006 Linux-wise, I like Yoper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caris Posted October 1, 2006 Share Posted October 1, 2006 The wonders of OSX. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shorty Posted October 1, 2006 Share Posted October 1, 2006 You don't desperately need drivers for everything. You don't need drivers for your disk drives or anything like that. You'll need drivers for your sound card, maybe a modem, graphics card etc, all of which you can get online or with the CD that came with them originally. If you're reformatting because you're having PC troubles I wouldn't reccomend holding on to any drivers, as you may hold on to something that's giving you troubles in the first place - just install them all again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarka Posted October 1, 2006 Author Share Posted October 1, 2006 You don't desperately need drivers for everything. You don't need drivers for your disk drives or anything like that. You'll need drivers for your sound card, maybe a modem, graphics card etc, all of which you can get online or with the CD that came with them originally. If you're reformatting because you're having PC troubles I wouldn't reccomend holding on to any drivers, as you may hold on to something that's giving you troubles in the first place - just install them all again. Ok, will do. But I am sure this computer came with none - is there anywhere I can download the drivers so I can burn them to a disk and use them? And Odwin, is Yoper easy to set up or is thereh lots of technical knowledge you must know to get it started? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shino Posted October 1, 2006 Share Posted October 1, 2006 If you're going to install linux, I think you just have to be lucky enough for ti to support you're hardware, if it's windows XP, it detects your hardware (probably the reason why you can't find a CD), but to have it 100% you need at least the graphics card drivers, either from http://www.nvidia.com or http://www.ati.com (dependig on what you have). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarka Posted October 1, 2006 Author Share Posted October 1, 2006 Mo-kay, thanks. If I got the latest ati driver on a disk, then reformatted and installed windows. Then would I be able to download any other drivers I need? Will that work? And would I have to get all 4 of these? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts