The purpose here is to make it easier to update drivers, install drivers, backup drivers and ultimately to move an existing hdd with Win7 to a new machine. Driving this is a need to temporarily move a hdd from a Toshiba Satellite laptop to another Satellite laptop while the first one goes back for replacement.
First, updating drivers — I found a great free driver update program that also offers a paid version if you are interested in saving download time and want automated updates ($29.97 per year). Fortunately the free version works just fine, at least as of this date. The program will review the installed drivers and then check their company database for new ones, then give you the link to download from the driver manufacturer, and then wait for the install to finish so you can download the next one that needs updating. It worked great. All the others I tried gave a free scan for driver updates but then wanted money to find out the link to the driver download. Thank you http://www.driverupdate.net/ and I hope you keep it free for years to come.
Next, backing up drivers — The best is free! Double Driver will backup and restore drivers. It is a stand alone program, so it can just sit in the same folder where the drivers are backed up. Thank you http://www.boozet.org/dd.htm!
Now the process:
Note that this will only work for Win7 if the same company made the old and the new computer and they have the same brand of processor (the bus may need to be the same and Win7 will only license to the same manufacturer, but there might be work arounds for this).
- Make a full disk image of the old computer.
- Update the drivers on the new computer.
- Make a full disk image of the new computer.
- Backup the drivers on the new computer.
- Restore the drivers from the new computer to the old computer.
- Swap the hdd from the old computer to the new computer, or
- a. make an image of the old computer (that now has the new drivers) and put that onto the new computer.