[kmb330]

Hello!
I have come here before for malware related issues and received wonderful help, so I know someone will be able to aid me in my current situation. With that being said, I recently installed Vista on my very old and secondary notebook, an HP Pavilion zx5000. The problem is, when I went to the HP site to download my drivers, all of them are only XP compatible and HP offers no driver downloads for my model on a Vista operating system. I would just revert back to XP since this is my secondary notebook, however, I do not have the installation disk and upon starting up the notebook I am no longer given an option of F11 to restore the system to original factory settings since I have installed Vista. So, what I am asking is, can I download compatible drivers for my notebook (HP Pavilion zx5000) and Vista or am I completely screwed? Thanks so much in advance for any help you can offer!

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The problem is that manufacturer's like HP have drivers specially made (modified drivers) for their computers. These drivers are modified to match the custom-made hardware. As you may have guessed therefore, only the laptop manufacturer has these modified drivers.

Since they don't have XP-compatible drivers for your model, you are going to have to identify the motherboard, then visit that motherboard manufacturer's website and download the standard drivers for that motherboard model, if it's listed, and hope that they work. Failing that it's going to be hours of frustration trying different drivers till you hit on one that works. No fun.

You can get the make & model of the motherboard by using a system information tool such as Belarc Advisor from here: http://www.belarc.co...e_download.html

The moral of your story is "check for driver availability before installing a newer version of Windows!"
(especially on a laptop where many components cannot be changed).

Edited by phillipcorcoran, 06 June 2011 - 08:31 AM.

[phillipcorcoran]

The problem is that manufacturer's like HP have drivers specially made (modified drivers) for their computers. These drivers are modified to match the custom-made hardware. As you may have guessed therefore, only the laptop manufacturer has these modified drivers.

Since they don't have XP-compatible drivers for your model, you are going to have to identify the motherboard, then visit that motherboard manufacturer's website and download the standard drivers for that motherboard model, if it's listed, and hope that they work. Failing that it's going to be hours of frustration trying different drivers till you hit on one that works. No fun.

You can get the make & model of the motherboard by using a system information tool such as Belarc Advisor from here: http://www.belarc.co...e_download.html

The moral of your story is "check for driver availability before installing a newer version of Windows!"
(especially on a laptop where many components cannot be changed).

Edited by phillipcorcoran, 06 June 2011 - 08:31 AM.

[Ztruker]

Also, do you have Internet on the laptop? If so, do a Windows Update and see if Vista has any updates for drivers. After that, you will have to look for drivers for each piece of hardware individually, from the vendor and not from HP. Takes a lot more work but it's usually doable.

Open Device Manager (Winkey+R, type devmgmt.msc and press Enter). For each device that has a yellow mark next to it, double click on it. Select the Details page then select Hardware Ids from the Property drop down. Do a Google search for the PCI\VEN_nnnn&DEV_nnnn

That usually allows you to find the manufacture of the device and see what Vista drivers are available. Post here with any you can't find and I'll try to help locate them.

Do the Windows Update first. If no Internet, find a driver for the Newtork card first then do a Windows Update.

I'll be away 6/9 through 6/14 but other folks here will be able to help.

[kmb330]

Hello!
@PhillipCorcoran: I used the Belarc Advisor tool, however I do not understand what exactly my motherboard is as the profile provided does not directly tell me. My best guess would be that this is the Main Circuit Board, which is listed as Board: Hewlett-Packard 0898 31.36 and BIOS: Hewlett-Packard F.25 07/24/2004. I googled both and found nothing. If it helps, my processor information is 3.20 gigahertz Intel Pentium 4, 8 kilobyte primary memory cache, 512 kilobyte secondary memory cache, Hyper-threaded (2 total). If there is any other information provided in the Belarc Advisor Computer Profile that could be helpful to you, please let me know and I will post it as soon as possible.

@Ztruker: I do have internet on my laptop, but when I open my Device Manager, it displays "Navigation to the webpage was cancelled." When I click on "Refresh the page" (which is the only option listed), I receive an error message that reads "MMC has detected an error in a Snap-In. It is recommended that you shut down and restart MMC." I tried this several times to no avail. I am highly confused by this particularly because I have no idea what a Snap-In is. Therefore, I am unable to proceed with the rest of your instructions. I can also note that yesterday Windows Update installed Realtek AC'97 Audio, however when I scroll over the volume icon it reads "No Audio Output Device is installed." I am not sure what to make of any of this.

I appreciate everyone's help in my situation and look forward to hearing from you.

[Ztruker]

Do you have a C:\Windows.old folder on the laptop now? If so you can restore XP from it. See here:

How to restore a computer to a previous Windows installation after you install Windows Vista