Old Laptop Makeover

[Stabbo-Lad]

Hi all,

My old Pentium 4 laptop with 256mb RAM is getting slower by the day so I thought I'd reinstall XP then double the RAM.

My worry is that its had a new hard drive and mainboard fitted and I don't have driver discs for either.

Is that going to cause me a problem when I reload XP, if so where I find the drivers folder they're located in? (done a quick search and there's dozens of them.

Thanks,

SL.

[JimShortz]

I still run an old P4 2.4mhz desktop with a decent (256mb) video card and 1gb mamory. This to me is fine, but the key is in having plenty of memory - 512 to me is an absolute minimum, with 1gb or more making considerable additional improvement...

I had a compaq laptop with a P4 chip and high spec video card. It cost me a fortune, but got really hot and eventually fried the motherboard (as perhaps yours did?). The problem is that P4 chips generate a LOT of heat. Much more than the newer dual core chips. I stronly recommend you use a cooling pad to blow air into the base of your machine. This made a HUGE difference to the temperature that mine ran at, but unfortunately I bought the collibng pad after mine was fried. Doh! The pads only cost 3 or 4 hundred Baht; money very well spent if you intend to use the computer for more than an hour or so at a time - as is the additional memory.

Now to answer your question! Just google for "driver backup software". There are loads of free tools that you can use to backup your drivers before you go formatting the drive. Also, get yourself a (free) copy of Belarc Advisor. This will give you a detailed report of all of the hardware inside your machine. Just google for "belarc".

I hope this helps!

[Stabbo-Lad]

Thanks for the reply Jim.

I've already downloaded and printed the Belarc report.

Are drivers for drives, mainboards etc hard-coded into the hardware? If not, how does the original recovery disc shipped with the computer recognize the new hardware?

I've found plenty of driver backup apps but how do I load them onto a laptop with no OS?

SL.

[Jiu-Jitsu]

Don't worry too much about this. XP has native support for a lot of hardware. Whatever is missing can be found with Windows Updates and a little detective work.

Just get started and then come back here for help with any missing drivers.