I need a simple driver backup program

[Relztrah]

For reasons I won't go into, I am going to fdisk, reformat and reinstall Windows on my computer. I would like to find an easy-to-use program to backup all my drivers to a Zip disk and reinstall them afterward. Does anybody out there know of one? I downloaded DriverGuide Toolkit but it seemed a bit clumsy and hard to use.

Thank,
Relztrah

[ErnieK]

It is a German site but the program is in English.

http://www.das-download-archiv.de/download_file358.html

[Relztrah]

I successfully backed up drivers using DriverGuide Toolkit (thank you ErnieK), used fdisk to delete and recreate the primary DOS partition, which I routinely do on an older machine, then reformatted HD.

I booted from a startup floppy and started Setup which ran Scandisk normally finding no errors and proceeded to the "Welcome to Windows 98 Setup" screen. So far so good.

However, when I got to the "Setup is preparing the Windows 98 Setup Wizard which will guide you through the rest of the setup processs" screen, I get a beep, a small black rectangle (maybe it's supposed to have some error message?) on the screen and I'm frozen. I tried a couple times and the same results.

I looked through the Microsoft Knowledge Base for an article that addresses this, but found nothing. This machine formerly had Win 98 running on it, albeit with lots of weird problems which is why I'm giving it a lobotomy.

I don't think it's a device conflict because Setup doesn't get that far. I only get to the Setup Wizard before I totally freeze up.

Any suggestions?

[classicsoftware]

This is usually indicative of a hardware problem. Usually memory or hard disk.

What I would do is:

1) Open the case and blow out all of the dust.
2) Re-rest the RAM chips
3) Download the utilities from the HD manufacturer and test the drive. If it tests OK, I would zero fill it and then re-install

[Relztrah]

I am trusting I can download HD utilities to a floppy on my own machine and run on this one. No OS here since I deleted everything.

Also, you lost me with "zero fill". What does that mean?

Thanks,
Relztrah

[classicsoftware]

The answer to your first question is yes.

Zero fill eraser the hard drive. Fdisk and format don't really do that.

[Sylvander]

Go here http://www.tolvanen.com/eraser/ and download and install "Eraser".
[It's agreat little program, you'l love it.]
During installation [if I remember right] it will give the option to make a "Boot & Nuke disk" on a floppy.
This "Boot & Nuke" floppy can be used to make the previous contents irrecoverable [by overwriting with special patterns of 1's & 0's up to 35 times] or just "erased" by overwriting only once.
It will do this to all SCSI & IDE drives found [unless you tell it otherwise].

[Relztrah]

After following all the above advice, which I appreciate, in desperation I took another look at the CMOS settings. There's something in there called Load Fail-Safe Settings and I have no idea what it is. But I disabled it and voilà, I was able to install Win98 with no problem whatsoever. I have never seen Fail-Safe settins in a CMOS before, but whatever it is, it was preventing me from installing Windows. Thanks again for your help.

Relztrah