How to scan for and download missing drivers?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Baron Samedi
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Baron Samedi

Aaargh, I've done it this time !

I have a C: drive and two IDE drives which are mirrored with a
hardware RAID controller.

The mirroed drives hold data that I don't want lost in a drive crash,
like photos, code, other data, and lots of install programs .... and
drivers ....

So, I reinstalled Windows on C: and reformetted C: and now although
the BIOS and Linux can see the RAID, Windows doesn't see the RAID
drive(s).

Guess where the windows drivers for the RAID controller are ?

Ok, I can try to retrieve them from Linux, but before I thought of
that, I noticed that there are a number of programs out there which
will scan your PC and recommend driver and program updates if newer
versions are available.

Does anyone know of these?

DriverAgent looks good for drivers and CNET's
http://www.versiontracker.com/subscribe/drivers-software-updates/
looks good too.

The question is whether they, or others like them are worth $29, which
is best and if there are any free alternatives. I used to like BigFix,
but that has been discontinued.

In general, it's enough to detect what is installed and look for newer
versions, but in a case like this it is also good to be able to spot
what is missing.

What do you think ?
 
Aaargh, I've done it this time !

I have a C: drive and two IDE drives which are mirrored with a
hardware RAID controller.

The mirroed drives hold data that I don't want lost in a drive crash,
like photos, code, other data, and lots of install programs .... and
drivers ....

So, I reinstalled Windows on C: and reformetted C: and now although
the BIOS and Linux can see the RAID, Windows doesn't see the RAID
drive(s).

Guess where the windows drivers for the RAID controller are ?

Ok, I can try to retrieve them from Linux, but before I thought of
that, I noticed that there are a number of programs out there which
will scan your PC and recommend driver and program updates if newer
versions are available.

Does anyone know of these?

DriverAgent looks good for drivers and CNET'shttp://www.versiontracker.com/subscribe/drivers-software-updates/
looks good too.

The question is whether they, or others like them are worth $29, which
is best and if there are any free alternatives. I used to like BigFix,
but that has been discontinued.

In general, it's enough to detect what is installed and look for newer
versions, but in a case like this it is also good to be able to spot
what is missing.

What do you think ?
Click to expand...

No matter what "system" you will use to scan for the missing drivers,
nothing beats looking on the "hardware" manufacturer's own web site.
Most software scan foir drive system can recommend / find wrong
drivers since the manufacturer reserve the right to "tweak" the
"referrence drivers" for the hardware component (ex: nVidia video
card drivers.)
 
No matter what "system" you will use to scan for the missing drivers,
nothing beats looking on the "hardware" manufacturer's own web site.
Most software scan foir drive system can recommend / find wrong
drivers since the manufacturer reserve the right to "tweak" the
"referrence drivers" for the hardware component (ex:  nVidia video
card drivers.)- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -
Click to expand...

Errm, I forgot to add a few samll details ... - it has been a few
years since I got this system; I moved house & don't have my "driver
disk" box anymore; and the card doesn't have any clues when examined
by eyeball :-(
 
Errm, I forgot to add a few samll details ... - it has been a few
years since I got this system; I moved house a few times & don't have
my "driver disk" box anymore; and the card doesn't have any clues when
examined by eyeball :-(
 
Baron said:
Errm, I forgot to add a few samll details ... - it has been a few
years since I got this system; I moved house a few times & don't have
my "driver disk" box anymore; and the card doesn't have any clues when
examined by eyeball :-(
Click to expand...

Can you tell us:

1) Motherboard make and model number ? (i.e. Asus P5B Deluxe)

or

2) Computer make and model number ? (i.e. Dell Dimension 1234)

There are utilities that can tell you a few things about your
computer, such as Everest, Sisoftware Sandra, CPUZ, Belarc Advisot
etc. But knowing some model info is just as good, for locating
drivers.

In the above examples, you could go to the Asus web site or the
Dell web site, for drivers.

The more you can tell us about the system, the more likely we
can give you an exact URL for the driver.

Paul
 
Can you tell us:

1) Motherboard make and model number ? (i.e. Asus P5B Deluxe)

    or

2) Computer make and model number ? (i.e. Dell Dimension 1234)

There are utilities that can tell you a few things about your
computer, such as Everest, Sisoftware Sandra, CPUZ, Belarc Advisot
etc. But knowing some model info is just as good, for locating
drivers.

In the above examples, you could go to the Asus web site or the
Dell web site, for drivers.

The more you can tell us about the system, the more likely we
can give you an exact URL for the driver.

    Paul
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion, Paul. It's a cheap Cpaq desktop, but the
missing driver which really bugs me is for a RAID controller which I
added later, and that has no identifying markings.
 
Baron said:
Thanks for the suggestion, Paul. It's a cheap Cpaq desktop, but the
missing driver which really bugs me is for a RAID controller which I
added later, and that has no identifying markings.
Click to expand...

You can get Everest here.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html

Start it up, then go to Devices:PCI_Devices. Look through the
entries there, and you may see your RAID controller.

If it isn't identified with a text string, look for Device-ID
and Subsystem-ID. The strings there, can be looked up, and the
device discovered. When you install drivers, the INF file has
lines in it, which are matched against the Device-ID and
Subsystem-ID, and they look like this.

PCI\VEN_1039&DEV_7012&SUBSYS_020117AA

The file with Vendor and Device numbers, one I use occasionally
to identify hardware, is here. This file is not an official list,
but is hand assembled. The official list might be kept by an
organization like PCISIG, but I don't know the details. I don't
expect they would release the list for public viewing, as some
manufacturers would wish to keep the information secret until
a product is released for sale.

http://pciids.sourceforge.net/pci.ids

Paul
 
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