Dell laptop, reinstall windows XP - missing drivers

richi1

Hi All,
Going round in circles here.
I have a dell laptop (Latitude E5500) and have just reinstalled windows XP and office 2007 BUT I thought I had saved the drivers on a seperate drive but we all know what thought did.....So on another PC I went on Dell website and saved the drivers suggested on a pendrive and tried to load them - little success, using the update driver wizard it cannot find the driver.
When I look at Device Manager I have a list of nine 'other devices' with yellow ? problem appears to be no drivers.
these are Audio Device on High Def Audio Bus (2 No) Base system device. Ethernet controller Modem Device on HD audio Bus. Network Controller. SM Bus Controller. Video controller and Video controller VGA compatible.
Questions How do I get drivers for these devices installed?
Which are the important ones?
Thanks in advance

leemoss

The drivers from the Dell website definitely work, ive set up loads of E5500s for work.
Have you downloaded the correct driver for each device as dell often give a few choices as the E5500 hardware can vary machine to machine.
Usually the drivers come as self extracting/installing files so no need to go through the device manager.

richi1

I have been on Dell website and its displaying 11 pages of drivers / updates for this machine (entered my service tag)

Think my problem is me.... How do I find the driver for say the ethernet controller ?

on properties it says drivers for this device not installed so looking on dell website I cannot see the driver called ethernet controller

SteveJH200

Can you connect the laptop to the internet yet? Just wondered if you have managed to connect it wirelessly as you don't have the wired driver installed. Once you're connected your first task will be to update XP. You can choose the custon update and you will see some drivers on there that will get you out of trouble. You can then go to the Dell website and download and install the remaining drivers.

If you can't connect to the internet then do install the ethernet driver from your memory stick. Failing that I use a USB dongle wireless adapter and install that just to get connected. Once you're connected then life becomes a lot easier.

Another useful resource for free drivers is 'Slim Drivers'.

closed

have you wiped the factory restore partition?

drivers on the website are usually sorted into categories, eg network

santer_2

One option, if device manager gives the name of any, download them from here, though windows update may offer a few of them

http://support.euro.dell.com/support/downloads/driverslist.aspx?os=WW1&catid=-1&dateid=-1&impid=-1&osl=EN&typeid=-1&formatid=-1&service!!!!!&SystemID=LAT_E5500&hidos=WW1&hidlang=en&TabIndex=&scanSupported=False&scanConsent=False

SteveJH200

This is the one you need for the wired (ethernet) connection http://support.euro.dell.com/support/downloads/format.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs&deviceid=23556&libid=5&releaseid=R296613&vercnt=2&formatcnt=0&SystemID=LAT_E5510&service!!!!!&os=WLH&osl=en&catid=-1&dateid=-1&typeid=-1&formatid=-1&impid=-1&checkFormat=true

richi1

Not connected to internet yet, connected ethernet cable but not all software there to configure connection.
Will try again tomorrow, Will look for ethernet driver and save it on memory stick.

Yep I wiped factory reset partition.

Thanks all your help.
Goodnight from me.