Fixing Missing Drivers on Windows XP?

Well I sold my friend my 3 year old laptop, as he wanted it to run XP. Anyways, I gave it to it fresh and perfectly fine, and somehow the drivers have dissapeard off the face of it with no trace. Unfortunately, I dont have the serial number because its worn off the sticker. The model is a Gateway MA2A and I cant find the drivers for it anywhere.

Does anyone know how to get the drivers back for it? I tried system recorvery and restore and it did nothing. Please help!

The model you specified doesn't even exist anywhere on their website. You might want to check that again. When in doubt with notebooks, it often works to look in the BIOS. If that thing lets you in the BIOS it will probably tell you what key to push when you turn it in.

Find out what make/model the motherboard is and search for those drivers.

Heh, as a former tech support officer for the army, we ALWAYS stumbled upon unmarked/noname hardware. Granted, we had an extensive driver database and from experience we could tell if driver X would work on chipset Y (if XP didn't have built in drivers for it) but some motherboards were obscure enough to warrant an internet search to at least get the mobo model and chipset right.

A couple of obscure "ruggedized" laptops came in too...with the official support site long ago dead. Even in this case however, using tools like Everest or PC Wizard 2009 we could identify the chipset/sound/other hardware and use generic non-OEM drivers. Interestingly, even if we could find the original vGA drivers for it, the Ati Omega drivers worked way better.

So, do the same: arm yourself with some patience, pencil and paper, get everest or PC wizard 2009, and happy searching.

You may be tempted to use one of the many "Driver Wizards" that are on the web, but in 99% of cases these are just scams and malware. Keep away from them.

Well start by slapping something like HWINFO32 in it and see what the shit it's called.

CPUZ will help in that regard as well.

I was wondering, no need to nag, but if I could get my external wireless adapters drivers working on it with my usb adapter, could someone do remote assistance and help me find out whats wrong? I will search the databases and that but I'm better with software then all the hardware stuff.

Getting that far would mean that you have the very least functional USB ports -usually an USB-only driver will suffice, but you may need to find a complete chipset driver package too. And then you'd need drivers for the wireless adapter too (which you have, right?)

In any case, since it's a laptop, can't you just google the model name, manufacturer and number and find if it's still supported and avoid all that cyber-roving?

Maes said:

Getting that far would mean that you have the very least functional USB ports -usually an USB-only driver will suffice, but you may need to find a complete chipset driver package too. And then you'd need drivers for the wireless adapter too (which you have, right?)

In any case, since it's a laptop, can't you just google the model name, manufacturer and number and find if it's still supported and avoid all that cyber-roving?

Nah, its not supported anymore. I checked the website, and contacted support. They say they cant help me without the serial number. I need to find it by other means I guess. -.- I'll try those databases see what comes up, and check the motherboard and post everything back here.

Dunno if this helps or not. Start with Gateway as the manufacturer and go from there, it may or may not have the drivers you want.

EDIT: On second look all the downloads point to the same program called Driver Robot. My bad -_-

Before trying anything "automagical" (which often doesn't work or is malware), try some of the industry-standard tools posted above and the very least post some logs (in particular, northbridge/southbridge, GPU, sound, CPU, etc.)

Or, if you can find even a product description of your laptop, you will the very least get a hint of what hardware it's supposed to be carrying -you can then find generic drivers based on that.

Maes said:

Before trying anything "automagical" (which often doesn't work or is malware), try some of the industry-standard tools posted above and the very least post some logs (in particular, northbridge/southbridge, GPU, sound, CPU, etc.)

Or, if you can find even a product description of your laptop, you will the very least get a hint of what hardware it's supposed to be carrying -you can then find generic drivers based on that.

Well I know the wirelss adapter is a Broadcom, anything generic I could use for that? I'll keep looking for more information.

Broadcom makes a shitload of wireless adapters, and first of all you need USB drivers.

I don't get what's so hard about looking for a model number on a tag or a piece of plastic.

Maes said:

Broadcom makes a shitload of wireless adapters, and first of all you need USB drivers.

I don't get what's so hard about looking for a model number on a tag or a piece of plastic.

The model number is MA2A it sais in my first post.

After some black magic, I found out that the laptop uses an Intel ICH6 chipset:

Intel 82801FBM ICH6-M
A Conexant Cx20468 audio controller.

There are many possible variations of the MA2A (NX500, MX6000...) but all use the ICH6 line of drivers (Intel 915) so at least you can get disks and USB ports functioning just with generic drivers, perhaps even graphics. You can get the Cx20468 driver from other manufacturers too. It's not a complete solution, but it's a start, the very least you'll be able to get software on it (you may have to burn a CD for the first passage though).

A bit of google search can be very revealing:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=826879

Maes said:

After some black magic, I found out that the laptop uses an Intel ICH6 chipset:

Intel 82801FBM ICH6-M
A Conexant Cx20468 audio controller.

There are many possible variations of the MA2A (NX500, MX6000...) but all use the ICH6 line of drivers (Intel 915) so at least you can get disks and USB ports functioning just with generic drivers, perhaps even graphics. You can get the Cx20468 driver from other manufacturers too. It's not a complete solution, but it's a start, the very least you'll be able to get software on it (you may have to burn a CD for the first passage though).

A bit of google search can be very revealing:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=826879

Thanks, this is def a start : D.

I got some information now.

Wireless Adapter : Broadcom 802.11g (I googled and installed the drivers but still doesnt work, am I doing something wrong or is there generic drivers for this?

For the rest I just have Device IDs and Vendor IDs.

Ethernet Controller : DEVICE ID - 4351 | VENDOR ID - 11AB

Mass Storage Controller : DEVICE ID - 8033 | VENDOR ID - 104C

Multimedia Audio Controller : DEVICE ID - 266E | VENDOR ID - 8086

PCI Modem : DEVICE ID - 266D | VENDOR ID - 8086

Video Controller : DEVICE ID - 2792 | VENDOR ID - 8086

Video Controller (VGA Compatible): DEVICE ID - 2592 | VENDOR ID - 8086

Any help is appreciated! Remote assistance will make me happy too, I have an external adapter I can use to connect with.

Haven't you tried with Intel drivers yet? This should bring you directly at all relevant downloads for the 915 chipset that your laptop uses. That alone will take care of everything except maybe the LAN the the wireless. There's really nothing else to download, nor can you find individual device drivers others than those in the 915 packages by Intel.

FOr the wireless it may still not wotk properly with Wireless Zero Configuration, and you'll need a Broadcom wireless manager too, in addition to drivers. Especially if you installed some old service pack revision (< SP3) then the wireless may not work with anything other than unencrypted or WEP.

If you need EVEN MORE detailed help, here you are:

Integrated graphics drivers

INF update utility (chipset drivers).

Sorry, can't download and host for you :-p

Maes, another question. When I go to download those drivers and INF installer from Intel is asks me to choose my chipset from this list.

Intel® 3 Series Chipsets
Intel® 4 Series Chipset
Intel® 5 Series Chipset
Intel® 6300ESB I/O Controller Hub
Intel® 848P Chipset
Intel® 865 Chipset Family
Intel® 875P Chipset
Intel® 910 Express Chipset Family
Intel® 915 Express Chipset Family
Intel® 925X Express Chipset Family
Intel® 945 Express Chipset Family
Intel® 946 Express Chipset Family
Intel® 955X Express Chipset
Intel® 965 Express Chipset Family
Intel® 975X Express Chipset
Intel® Centrino® Processor Technology
Intel® Chipset Software Installation Utility
Intel® E7210 Chipset
Intel® E7221 Chipset
Intel® E7230 Chipset
Intel® E7320 Chipset
Intel® E7520 Chipset
Intel® E7525 Chipset
Intel® E8500 Chipset
Intel® E8501 Chipset
Mobile Intel® 4 Series Express Chipset Family
Mobile Intel® 5 Series Chipset
Mobile Intel® 910GML Express Chipset
Mobile Intel® 915 Express Chipset Family
Mobile Intel® 945 Express Chipset Family

How do I find out which one my laptop has? Again, I have no papers or anything.

Maes said:
I found out that the laptop uses an Intel ICH6 chipset

all use the ICH6 line of drivers (Intel 915)

all relevant downloads for the 915 chipset that your laptop uses

Mobile Intel® 915 Express Chipset Family