Now before i ask my question i should let you know im no whizz kid on computers. I know bits and bobs so when your answering my question could you please just pretend like i am a complete newbie. Thanks

Recently i bought a computer, its pretty old but runs quite smoothly. I bought it to work on as i am one of those curious characters who likes to stick his fingers into a little of everything just for something to do. New project being "learning how to build computers".

With this computer, the dude i got it off told me he had formatted the hard drive (it has only one 12gig) which means it should of been wiped clean of everything but the standard windows computers and the ME installation, drivers etc, etc..... but, the hard drive had only 6gig free. 6gig was being used some where else on the computer!!! Windows ME does not run at 6gig i know that much! So i asked him for the driver disks so i could format the hard drive and install XP, only he says he cant find the driver disks which means im screwed unless i can find out how to get a complete list of the drivers already installed so i can download them to reinstall with the fresh XP installation.

Is there a way i can get a full list of the drivers on my computer with a trust worthy website i can download them from?

Thanks

Well there are several things factor in but we can't point you to the drivers without the make/model of the computer. As for consuming space 12 gb will probably be too small especially if you are planning on having personal files and other programs on there. ME might not usually take 6 gb but XP will. Pertaining space you'll be no better off however you should be able to replace that hard drive. Now normally it would be better to have XP than ME but if you don't have enough system resources (especially ram) you'll probably be worse off. Besides if there are no XP drivers (ME drivers won't work) you won't get much functionality with XP. In addition if your copy of XP is branded from a company such as Dell then there are a number of reasons why you can't use your copy on that computer.

Before we can help you further we need to know more about the computer.

Well i dont have big plans for the computer. Its just a project, something for me to get used to before i decide to build a tower from scratch.
Iv installed XP over ME without formatting the hard drive just to see how it would run and its fine, not a problem in sight. Iv played games, watched films, played music, browsed the internet and it actually looks like its running smoother.
I know the hard drive is tiny but at the moment that is not my priority as i can just go out and buy one from anywhere. Plus i have a 250gig external hard drive i keep my personal files on anyway. My main concern is the drivers.
Before i can go out and buy another hard drive im going to need those drivers. Not only that but i would like to have them on disk/backup before doing any more messing with the computer just in case i decide/need to wipe the computer and start again.

Can you tell me if their is a way i can get a full list of drivers from my computer, there must be a way?

If not, can you tell me which drivers i will NEED (e.g Graphix card, sound card, modem etc) so that the computer will play games, music, videos and browse the internet as normal? Are these the only drivers i will need or are there others?

Specs:

Processor: Intel Pentium III
Operating System: XP Service pack 3
RAM: 192MB
Graphics card: 3dfx Voodoo 3
Hard drive: 12 GB
Modem/Ethernet:
Sound: Creative Sound Blaster PCI

Forgot to add....

Modem/Ethernet: Realtek RTL8139 Family PCI

I found some graphics drivers for XP here however they aren't official drivers. According to wikipedia the only official drivers are for 98 or me.

Originally Posted by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voodoo3

The last set of drivers officially released for the Voodoo 3 on Win9x was version 1.07.00. For Win2000 the latest version is 1.03.00.[9] After 3dfx shut its doors 3rd party drivers for Windows 98/98SE and XP were developed by loyal 3dfx customers.

Since they aren't from the manufacturer then I would be highly cautious in using them but other than using the drivers that come with XP you have no choice. If the graphics are good enough for you then you might consider not changing them because incorrectly written drivers can cause system instability. If you choose to before installing them you should set a restore point in case you have any trouble later.

Truthfully I don't know how you can do all of that using only the drivers that come with xp because they generally don't do much. As for your modem I could only find them here. How are you connecting to the internet without them? For anything else I'm going to need to know the make/model of your computer.

Also you don't really have enough ram for xp. I don't recommend having xp on a system with less than 512 mb and preferably 1 gb or more. As you start to install more programs expect for windows to slow down.

To get a detailed report of all your (recognized) machines hardware;

Download, install, and run Everest Home Edition on this machine. (Clean FreeWare)

Once it's finished loading and running, click on the Report Wizard in the Menu Bar. Save all hardware related pages (the default) to a TEXT file. (It will save it to C:\Program Files\Lavalys\EVEREST Home Edition\Reports by default, unless you redirect it.)

Compress (zip) the Everest Report text file and attach that zipped text document to your next posting. (When posting, click on Advanced, and just below the posting box you'll see "Additional Options", and within that, "Attach Files". Click on "Manage Attachments" and follow the prompts. Browse to the file and choose UPLOAD.)

Sorry guys, i forgot to mention that the computer started to be a bit of a *%$£ so i put my foot through it. I turned it on one morning and suddenly it decided it didnt want to work any more even though the night before it was running fine. Completely lost my patience with it haha. I now have 2 others to play around with now. That computer was just way too old i think. It must of been on its way out.

Thank you both for all your help and thanx for the Everest program. Good little program to have.

Without an adequate amount of ram your computer will seem slow. That's because it is having to substitute the hard drive for memory which is of course much slower. It's called virtual memory and although it isn't usually a problem if your computer is heavily relying on it your performance will be degraded. My mom's last computer had 256 mb of ram and it drove her nuts.