From Tony Bradley on Windowsnetworking.com article “Remove Unused Drivers and Devices” for XP, maybe others
With the device physically removed from the computer, the only way to view, and thereby have access to uninstalling, the drivers is to alter Device Manager to Show hidden devices. Follow the steps below to display the hidden device information:
- Right-click My Computer and select Properties
- Click on the Advanced tab
- Click on Environment Variables
- Below the bottom Environment Variables window pane (System Variables), click on New
- For Variable Name, enter devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices
- For Variable Value, enter 1
- Click OK to close Environment Variables and OK again to close System Properties
Now that you have created this entry, when you open Device Manager, you can click on View and then select Show hidden devices from the menu. You can identify the hidden devices by their grayed-out icons.