Reformatting an HP

[cyrax]

I was just about to reformat my HP's hard drive, when I remembered seeing something on this forum about having to have your drivers cds and stuff. Since I bought this HP second-hand, I don't have all it's drivers. I have it's graphics card drivers, but that's about it. Would it still be safe to reformat?

 

[WorldIndustries]

Maybe so. Depends on if Windows XP will automatically recognize some or most of your hardware. If not, maybe you'll have some luck looking on the HP support and drivers page:

HP Support & Drivers

 

[Nukem]

XP will see eveything in just about all newer HP system from the last few years... I did a reformat with one I have about a year or so ago and XP installed all of it... The only thing I have to do was D/L the mobo driver from the hp site... it was hard to find as some of their areas are not user friendly, but they have it. OR if you have the mobo specs you can try to google it and get drivers from a 3rd party site... either way you should be good.

 

[Jby]

So long as XP recognises your network card and allows you to access the internet you can most likely download the rest of the drivers (I was able to when reformating an older HP).

 

[Alvin.C]

Re:

You can just download them again. Probably be better to download newer drivers anyway.

 

[cyrax]

Yeah, ok. I'll reformat it tonight and tell you how it goes.

 

[FlashDude]

Hold the phone, Your copy of xp is on a repair partition all you need to do is go into hptools (allprogrmas) and reinstall from there. Pick the advanced option and select the option to make it the same as when it was shipped. Then it will do a quick format (delete everything) and reinstall. HP's are very easy.

 

[cyrax]

I've reformatted and installed Windows XP Professional.

Now I just can't find the ethernet driver for my motherboard. I've looked on HP's site, but they don't list a driver for it. I've installed all the drivers on their page though that are for a Intel 865 series motherboard.

 

[bigr5026]

just pick up a nic off fo a FS FT forum for like 5 dollars


PM me if you need one,. 6 shipped to you

 

[Jby]

It should be on their website somewhere, if not then contact them.
If all else fails then network cards aren't expensive anyway and all of them will probably do the job. Usually best to get a NIC anyway rather than running off the motherboard, I've always had problems running off the mobo built-in NIC.