Example of Unknown Device Driver Download (.exe and .zip) – Part 2

Before undergoing unknown device driver download (.exe or .zip), you must ensure vital data regarding your hardware. You need to know your device name/model to download the required device driver and prevent installing a wrong driver. You also need to know your OS type to prevent further device related issues such as downloading incompatible device driver.

In “Example of Unknown Device Driver Download (.exe or .zip) Part 1”, we discussed how to ensure the product model of a device and its manufacturer.

 

As recap, by using the search options in PCIDataBase.com, we gathered useful information such as its name/model which is Integrated Sata II Controller, and the official website of its manufacturer which is www.amd.com.

As mentioned, you need to determine your OS type to ensure that you will download the correct device drivers for your computer and to prevent wrong or incompatible device drivers. This is due to the fact that there are device drivers which is only designed and compatible for a specific or several OS types.  You can do this by:

For Windows XP:

   a.Click “Start”

   b.Click “Run”

   c.Type “msinfo32.exe”

   d.Look for System type: it’s either “x86-based PC” for 32-bit OS or “x64-based PC” for 64-bit OS

   Example for Windows XP:

   

   

For Windows Vista and Windows 7

   a.Click “Windows button”

   b.Type “System” in the Search box

   c.Click “System”

   d.Look for System type: it’s either 32-bit Operating System or 64-bit Operating System

Now we are ready to visit the official manufacturer’s website. Keep in mind that each manufacturer’s website differs in the manner of downloading device drivers.

In case of amd.com, the option to “Find a Driver” is already available in the homepage. Mouse-over that portion and you can already start to fill the categories in the “Download Drivers” form.

You may notice that in the download form, you need to specify the Component Category, after that its model, Product line, and the OS type. Required information differs for other websites.

But for the case of our example, it is noticeable that there is no related category for Integrated Sata II controller; it will make things complicated because the primary form to download drivers is unusable. If you’ll encounter the same situation as you download the device driver for your hardware manually, you can try to search the forums of the manufacturer’s website for any related topics.

In case of our example, there are “amd forums” that lead to an internal webpage which is http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/raid_windows.aspx. In this webpage we can download AMD RAID/SATA Drivers, and we don’t need to specify if we need a driver for 32 or 64-bit Windows 7. This is because it happens that the available device driver is compatible with both Windows 7-OS types, but that’s not always the case for other device drivers. 

In this case, the only thing required is that we need a device driver for Windows 7, and then the last step in this webpage is to click the “Download” button. After downloading the device driver, you can now install it on your computer.

So if you don’t want to go through this hassle, especially if you have multiple unknown devices, you can consider using an automatic driver update tool. This is great news for newbie PC users and to those who want to save their time and energy from searching online to solve unknown device related issues. To learn more, visit  http://www.unknowndevicedrivers.com/unknown-device-driver-download-exe-or-zip/.