How to find drivers for Unknown Devices
Usually, when you buy any hardware the drivers come along with it on a disc. If you lose the driver disc you can always download the necessary drivers from the manufacturer's website. But what do you do when you are not sure of the manufacturer of the hardware? This is quite a possible situation and blogger Vinod Chandramouli provides an excellent trick to deal with it.
Every device has a Vendor and Device id associated with it. If you can find this ID, you can find the manufacturer. In Windows it's easy to find the vendor and device id.
- Open Device Manager (Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager)
- The hardware whose drivers are missing will appear as Unknown device, so it's easier to locate the device.
- Right click on the unknown device and click on Properties.
- Under the Properties window click on Details tab and select Device Instance Id from the drop down box.
- You should see a code similar to this
PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_27DC&SUBSYS_30868086
&REV_01\4&1E46F438&0&40F0 - The portion of the code highlighted in RED is the Vendor ID and the portion highlighted in GREEN is the Device ID. In this example:
Vendor ID = 8086
Device ID = 27DC - Once you have obtained both the IDs, proceed to PCI Database. There you can either search for the vendor from the vendor ID or directly get information about the device along with the vendor name by searching with the device ID.
Great isn't it? Now you will never have to go hunting for correct drivers.
the internet is full of them - benjamin
google is also a good tool - Michael
Zombie news
That's how you find the Vendor ID and Driver ID, but that doesn't guarantee you will get a driver for your device. I didn't have much succes with this strategy, so I advise you not to get your hopes too high...
After you get the manfacturer's name you have to go to their website to download the drivers. If you can't get the drivers even from the manufacturer's site, which is unlikely, nobody can help you.
Never ever lose a disc. NEVER!!!
It's just so much easier. Anyway, if you have old devices like that you probably could use something shiny and new - remembering to keep the disc safe. DON'T lose it.
(from a computer illiterate idiot)
halfdone.org
does the work for you
i saw another post on this, it's easy
http://geekytips.com/blog/how-to-install-hardware-drivers-easily
NICE READING
VISIT MY BLOG - http://w-i-n-d-o-w-s.blogspot.com/
I'm guessing you're colorblind, not that thats an excuse when you can write code. #FF0000 or red is red.
#EA5412 is orange.
@Tomas: Ah, a real geek! :)
Just to clarify, #FF0000 and #00FF00 didn't look great and so I used a different shade. But it's still RED and GREEN for the normal human eye.
AWESOME POST - I accidentally deleted my CD ROM driver and need to replace it, will use this post over the weekend, thanks!
Keith Johnson
Hallandale, Florida
http://greatdocuments.net
Yes, hardware ID is a great way to find out the device. You can also just use a program like radarsync, which relies on HWID and other internal file ID information to find the device and driver for you.
yeah you could do all that.
or you could:
1. run a linux live cd (makes no change to your system).
2. at the command prompt type:
lspci
press enter.
http://bloglinux.org/
but i did not find any color.
plz find below what i got.
ACPI\IFX0102\1
Show me a screenshot.
Just use the freeware program "Unknown Devices". This is the quickest easiest way.
you are great.
in device instance id it show USB\VID_0000&PID_0000\5&200B6B02&0&2
mean both 0 so what to do?
please visit www.seleberita.com to find any trick of to find driver
Thanks, I didnt know. Very usefull
or you could get vista so it finds its own drivers....
The problem is I have an quest to find a driver that isnt supported on the original computer manf. page... So wtf should I do?
Thanks...its a good write & very useful for me...
Ya, its good man. Some laptops have same devices of different vendors.For ex:for ethernet there are realtek or atheros and so on. So we cant think which manufacturers drivers we have to download. For me its a good idea and thanks a lot
hi thanks for the help
Much easier to use DriverAgent.