Lost All Drivers! Help!

[JWang815]

I finally received my HP Pavilion Elite m9400t yesterday. It originally came with Vista Home Premium 64-bit with a lot of pre-installed software. I have the Vista Ultimate CD so I put that in and did a clean install. After I finished installation, there were no drivers and I went to hp.com to search for any drivers I can find. Apparently, for this specific model, there aren't that many drivers I can download.

Now, I can't even access Internet on my new desktop and everything is a mess. How can I fix this problem? Does HP not allow individuals to upgrade from Home Premium to Ultimate on their own?

My last option is the recovery CD, because that costs $18 (since it did not come in the box) and if I will have to get a recovery CD, will the Vista Ultimate 64-bit one work even though Vista Home Premium was pre-installed on this computer?

Any help is much appreciated. Thanks!

[cnfrisch]

Visit http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareCategory?product=3832294&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&lang=en&cc=us...

for driver downloads.

[JWang815]

So I actually tried downloading from that page and installing. The result: The Blue Screen of Death and it kept booting into that after it had asked me to restart so I had to re-install a second time. And that page only contains minimal drivers.

[cnfrisch]

Did you visit Microsoft Windows Update and scan your PC for missing drivers?

[Vaika]

Is the copy you're trying to install 32-bit or 64-bit?

[JWang815]

It is 64-bit

When I click on Microsoft Windows Update within Vista, it keeps saying there are no available updates.

[RasterBlaster]

First off, if you can't get on the Internet - Windows update will not work. You have to have Internet.

Second, your PC came with a recovery partition. If you didn't delete all the partitions when you installed Vista Ultimate, you can turn on the PC and press F11 repeatedly to start up a system recovery.

If you want to pursue keeping Vista Ultimate and ditching HP's software build, you can start by grabbing the latest chipset driver for your motherboard - Intel G33 Express.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Product_Filter.aspx?ProductID=2843

The chipset should give you a lot of the functionality you are lacking. The software updates that you have been trying to install from HP are updates - not originals. You now need full version drivers because you replaced the OS. You can get them from each hardware component manufacturer's web site.

Message Edited by RasterBlaster on 12-11-2008 05:13 PM

[JWang815]

That was very helpful, thanks!

I do have Internet now because I have a wireless adapter I bought separately and I installed the driver via CD. I was able to install the NVIDIA Graphics driver from HP in Safe Mode. I will go ahead and keep the Vista Ultimate upgrade and find the drivers individually.

As far as the Windows Update, even with internet, it keeps saying nothing is available. How can I fix this?

[RasterBlaster]

It's probably true - no updates are available. Win Update looks at most driver updates as optional - it is mainly for updated relating to Micorosft's product - the operating system: security updates, bug fixes for Windows, etc... However, OEMs work with Microsoft so that people can use the WinUpdate process to get drivers as well.

To get driver "updates" and some full version drivers through Windows Update you can right-click device names in device manager and select Update Driver.

Also, you can open Window Update again, and if there are ANY updates available, you can click View Available Updates in the upper right corner (if any are available).

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&docname=bph07159&dlc=en&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_USE...

[JWang815]

When I tried to download:

<SCRIPT>document.write("Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator Driver for Windows Vista* 64 (exe)")</SCRI... (19412KB)

From that page you sent me, it said that my system does not meet the minimum requirements. I clicked update driver in the device manager, but it said that I already have the latest drivers. My main issue is windows update now, it simply won't give me any updates and I know that my computer is outdated because it doesn't even have DreamScene on it until after I get the updates.