DC7600 XP SP2 SMALL FORM FACTOR PCI AUDIO DRIVER

[NICKH31]

Hi all - I have 2 dc7600 machines and one of the hard drives has failed.  Bought a new HD, formatted and  copied my i386 and Comaq folders from the good machine and then reinstalled 32 bit XP SP2 operating system from my original CD - all working

3 drivers were not installed so pointed system device manager to the relevant Compaq folders and got 2 of drivers working.  However, there is a PCI driver I cant get operational 

Have established the PCI device is an Intel 27D8 HD audio controller for the NM10 chapter 7 chipset.  When I go to the device manager and navigate to sound, video and audio controllers, select Intel in Manufacturer, there's a list of Intel AC97 drivers  (AC97 cross refs to Realtek which is the manufacturer of the audio device in the Compaq directory).  However, the system warns me it cant verify if any are compatible.  Thus, I select "have a disc", browse to the Compaq audio folder but it it claims the specified location does not contain info about the hardware. (although INF files do exist there). Dxdiag confirms no sound or device or drivers installed.  I also tried booting the application in the Realtek folder but it doesn't run

I then downloaded Realtek and on board audio drivers (which I presume to be the PCI device) from this HP site and  saved to C but got same

message when I tried the above again.  I had guessed it may be the on-board that's the issue so was hopeful with latter download but no success

Run out of options - any thoughts?

[BeemerBiker]

Using network share: On the  XP system that is working set the windows folder to share,

On the system missing the driver have it browse that shared  folder looking in the INF folder first.  It is possible the INF folder will be hidden I don't remember but you can just unhide it

why don't you install windows 10 or 11, 64 bit. there's no need to buy a license and activate, you just have to put up with a nag screen

https://www.thewindowsclub.com/disadvantages-and-limitations-of-unactivated-windows

Linux Mint is super easy to use it should work fine

https://linuxmint.com/download.php

[NICKH31]

Thanks for this input - problem with network share is no network.  I've never connected the machines to the net to preserve them

Problem with moving to inactivated W10/11 is that none of my old software will run - and that's the reason for staying with XP

[BeemerBiker · Accepted solution]

Try copying the two folders described to flash and then try to install the driver letting XP search them

Driver locations in XP | Tom's Hardware Forum (tomshardware.com)

[NICKH31]

Thanks for this advice - moving the driver and INF files to the windows directories as advised worked well.  It remains a mystery why pointing to the INF file in device manager didn't!