how to back up system drivers

[andylane]

I have just recieved a Toshiba Satallite Pro P300-1EX preloaded with Vista home premium. Which as all been up to dated by me through windows and microsoft update.

 

So soon as i got it i went into the computer managemet and opened the disc management.

Here i found there are three disk partitions these where lables as so:

 

Volume Layout Type FileSys Status Capacity FreeSpace %Free

Simple Basic Healthy (EISA Config) 1.45GB 1.46GB 100%

Data (E:) Simple Basic NTFS Healthy (Primary Parti) 54.29GB 49.03GB 90%

Vista (C:) Simple Basic NTFS Healthy( System,Boot,Page ect) 56.03GB 18.12GB 32%

 

and of course CD-ROM 0 DVD (F:)

 

Now when i go into the 'Computer' off the desktop and hit properties! i get:

 

Vista (C:) 18.1GB free of 56.0GB

Data (E:) 49.0GB free of 54.2 GB

 

 

My question is this: is the EISA partition for the system drivers which were preinstalled by Toshiba in its own partition? so i dont have to worry and if so how would i reinstall them if i did a format?

 

This is what i would like to do:

Reformat into one hard drive and load windows 7 ultimate and then load all the system drivers back on. The thing is i dont have a system disk... i got only the laptop with everything preinstalled by the prior owner of ebay

[Jelly Bean]

Hello and welcome.

 

The EISA is your recovery partition,this hold the software and drivers to recover your computer if lets say it crashes or gets a virus.EISA will set your computer back to factory reset and no need to search for drivers.

 

Did you not get a driver disk when you bought the machine?

 

You could also make recovery disks wich would also store the software and drivers to restore your computer.

[andylane]

cheers jellybean

Thats helped alot i will format the Data and C drive ... delete both drives and make one c: drive .

 

How do i go about making a recovery drive as this would be wise to do.

[andylane]

cheers jellybean

Thats helped alot i will format the Data and C drive ... delete both drives and make one c: drive.

 

No i never got a driver disk but the machine was really cheap.. i nogotiated well ;)

 

Just a thought .. but wouldnt the drivers for the system be vista drivers? i want to load windows7 on it after formatting the two drives,, this would make the EISA no good wouldnt it??

 

And also how do i go about making a recovery drive as this would be wise to do.

[Jelly Bean]

If you do not have Windows 7 yet I would keep the recovery console for now.

 

Here are some very usefull links for you to save to your favourites:

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/216417

 

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows7/help/system-repair-recovery

 

 

The two seprate partions are a better way to store data.....

 

I download to my second partition then scan for viruses when clean I move to main partition....

 

When you download hardware drivers,do not download and install.Download and save them first.Once you have all the drivers for Windows 7 you require save them to a disk,floppy disk or a USB pen drive so you will always have them at hand but remember drivers are updated every so often.

 

Then once saved you can then install them when you wish....

[Synapse]

Don't forget that when you install Windows 7 you will probably remove the ability to use the recovery partition for ever.