Digital Streets

You often hear about backing up your data, but did you ever think about backing up your drivers?  Making a backup of your drivers and burning them to a CD can save you tons of time and frustration the next time you need to reload your computer.  After burning them to disc, label the CD and store it with the installation disc for your operating system.  Then the next time you need to reload your system, everything you need to get up and running is easily at your fingertips.

To backup your drivers, you will first need to install an application suited for this purpose.  While there are quite a few out there, I use a utility called DriverMax.  It’s an easy to use piece of freeware that does everything I need it to.  Download DriverMax and install it onto your system.

Once installed, follow these steps to get a backup copy of your device drivers:

1. Open DriverMax.  When you first start it, it will show that that you have 30 days to evaluate the program.  You can claim your free registration code or skip this step and click the Continue evaluation button.
   
2. Click the Export drivers button at the top of the list.

   
   

3. Click Next.  DriverMax will build a list of installed drivers.
   
4. Once the list has been built, click the Select all button to select all drivers listed.

   
   

5. Click Next.
   
6. Select the radio button to Export all selected drivers to a folder.  Click the button to the right of the textbox and browse to the desired directory.  After selecting the directory, click OK.

   
   

7. Click Next.
   
8. DriverMax will then begin processing the selected drivers.

   
   

9. Once completed, verify that the drivers are in the desired directory by click the Open extraction folder button.
   
10. Click the Close button.
    
11. Click the Exit program button to close DriverMax.

Now burn the contents of the extraction folder onto a CD.  Once the CD has been burned, label it with the system that the drivers are for and the date.  Store the disc with your copy of Windows.  When the time comes to reload the system, install Windows as usual and then insert the driver disc when it’s time to fix those unknown devices.