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Dell forum: Advisability of installing all 15 drivers.

by: The ancient one December 21, 2012 6:26 AM PST

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Advisability of installing all 15 drivers.

by The ancient one - 12/21/12 6:26 AM

I don't have Dell recovery disc for my Inspiron 6000. I am in the process of replacing the 40GB hard drive with a 120GB hard drive and will need Dell drivers. On the Dell website support/drivers and downloads page this particular model with my service tag shows a total of 15 drivers: 1 is considered URGENT, 5 are considered RECOMMENDED, and 9 are considered OPTIONAL. Is there any reason that I should not download all 15 drivers? I am assuming that it won't effect the operation of the laptop if all 15 are installed. I am essentially starting from scratch with a new hard drive and will be loading a retail version of Win XP with sp2.

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Re: drivers

by Kees_B Moderator - 12/21/12 6:44 AM

In Reply to: Advisability of installing all 15 drivers. by The ancient one

Why not clone your current hard drive to the new drive? Then everything transfers: OS (with all Windows updates), programs, settings, your own data. Clonezilla, for example, is free and would do the job perfectly.

It's only an issue if the old drive is IDE and the new drive is SATA, or the other way around. But if that's the same a clone should work. Depending on the program you use to clone it's possible the new partition will be 40 GB also, so that you'll have to extend it to 120 GB. Any partition manager (GPARTED is free) will do.

Kees


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Thanks, Kees

by The ancient one - 12/21/12 10:32 AM

In Reply to: Re: drivers by Kees_B Moderator

My plan is to have this computer be as "clean" as it can be with Windows XPSP3, some antivirus software, and little other software only that which I really need.
I am sure that cloning would be the simplest way to do things. I have not done it before, but I believe I could figure out how to do that.
Really, just wanted to know if putting in unnecessary drivers would create any problems.


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Drivers...

by Willy - 12/21/12 10:41 AM

In Reply to: Thanks, Kees by The ancient one

While Dell may provide various drivers they *ALL* refer to what you actually present or installed in that model# PC. You need to know exactly what's what. Since this is a laptop it becomes harder. But, upon the XP reload, under the device manager it will point out what drivers aren't loaded or still need be. They will point to some XYZ device, note it down and get them. It's not going to hurt to all those Dell support website drivers shown, burnt to some disc to later refer to what prompted for drivers, they're either going to be accepted or shown as wrong ones.

One reason various drivers are present is that actual item could vary, like a modem card. It maybe ZZZ modem brand but you have XXX brand, so you get the idea they provide the full range as they did install on same model# at different times.

tada -----Willy happy


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Thanks

by The ancient one - 12/21/12 2:02 PM

In Reply to: Drivers... by Willy

I will keep that in mind. I have burned those that Dell said were either urgent or recommend on to one CD and the others that they list as optional onto another CD. If I end up needing any drivers, I will look to see if any of these will work.


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