Best Way To Collect Drivers Before Windows 95 Clean Install

[whyohwhyguys]

I would like to do a clean install of Windows 95 on a Dynamic Microsystems desktop before I sell it. I never received floppies with any of the drivers when I got the computer but it does boot to the Windows 95 desktop without issue. I was wondering what the easiest/best way would be to collect the necessary drivers off of the hard drives before I do a clean install of Windows. I have already connected a 2nd IDE hard drive to the machine so I should be able to store all the necessary files there. I know I can brute force find and transfer all the drivers manually but I was wondering if there was an easier way to do this. I know I could also just dban the hard drive and let the next person worry about the missing drivers but that just seems like an unnecessary pain for them when they are all currently on the system. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[tradde]

What if buyer does not want to run Win95? I don't have an answer to your question as I've never had to do that. But I am sure someone here will know and it will be good info to jot down. Also curious as to what this system contains? 5.25 in 1.2MB floppy? I am looking for an older system with said floppy.

 

[NeXT]

Short of the OEM leaving a folder on the system for the drivers you're going to have to track down all the driver bits and back them up.

 

[Agent Orange]

I'm thinking what you need is the 'chipset' drivers for the motherboard and W95 install will provide the rest excluding peripherals of course.

 

[SomeGuy]

Unfortunately, a lot of Windows 9x drivers can't be properly installed without their original proprietary setup programs.

If you are very lucky, the original vendor included a folder with driver setup programs somewhere on the hard drive. Otherwise, you are just going to have to spend a lot of time searching the web, looking back with archive.org, or asking around here to find all of the drivers.

If it already has 9x on it, your best bet is just to make a backup, prune anything you don't want the buyer to have, and wipe the erased space.

 

[Agent Orange]

Unfortunately, a lot of Windows 9x drivers can't be properly installed without their original proprietary setup programs.

If you are very lucky, the original vendor included a folder with driver setup programs somewhere on the hard drive. Otherwise, you are just going to have to spend a lot of time searching the web, looking back with archive.org, or asking around here to find all of the drivers.

If it already has 9x on it, your best bet is just to make a backup, prune anything you don't want the buyer to have, and wipe the erased space.

Probably the best bet.