Lenovo Windows XP Reinstall Driver help

Question

I'm reinstalling Windows on an IBM Thinkpad T43. (Not T43p) I reinstalled the OS and now there a number of drivers that I need to reinstall. Any help would be appreciated. I've been to Lenovo's website. This would be a breeze but the Device Manager lists 2 Unknown devices. How do I figure out what those are?

Answer 1

See the MS support article on troubleshooting unknown devices.

As a ThinkPad user, I'd recommend installing all drivers provided by Lenovo. Even though the default XP drivers may work, some functionality only works with Lenovo drivers.

One example is ActiveProtection, another are the 3 TrackPoint buttons on some models. Neither would show up as Unknown Device, but the functionality would be missing without Lenovo drivers.

On the other hand, wireless/update/management software by Lenovo is not so good, I always skip it.

Answer 2

what you need to do is find the hardware ID of the device (should be in the properties of the unknown devices) with this you can post it here or do a search with JUST that information in Google and it should point to which device it is. take a look around google is a great tool.

Good Luck!!

Answer 3

You can download compressed drivers from driverpacks.net and create a driver cd for installation. It will install nearly 98% of missing drivers: see instructions here : "Solution: Find, Install Windows XP Drivers Easily"

Answer 4

Maybe a third party app like devicedoctor or drivermax can help you?

Device Doctor is a:

freeware Windows application that scans your computer hardware and checks to see if there are new driver updates available for your devices. It also locates drivers for "unidentified devices" in the Windows Device Manager.

Driver max:

allows you to download the latest driver updates for your computer. No more searching for some rare driver on discs or on the web. No more driver CD after the other. Just create a free account, log in, and start downloading the driver updates that you need.