DriverGrabber 2.0 - One Click Driver Backup!!
#1
Posted 07 June 2012 - 05:24 AM
DriverGrabber 2.0 Beta
This is a One Click Driver Backup Solution.
Very simple to use...
Run the "DriverGrabber 2.0.exe" and watch it Grab all of the drivers from your system and place them into a "Drivers" folder!
It now even grabs drivers that are no longer in use... For instance... a Printer Driver that is no longer physically connected to your system while you perform a backup.
Also... you can now use DriverGrabber on a Windows PE disk like LiveXP! It auto detects if it is being executed in a PE environment... it will attempt to auto detect the Windows Drive you wish to backup as well.
Download:
http://integrator.si...p?addons&id=242
Beta 5:
Fixed - A few bugs in the code causing DriverGrabber to fail finding the correct path to grab some driver files.
Changed - DriverSearch is now set to Off by default. If anyone has issues with backups I suggest they try to turn DriveSearch on and then post their log on the forum so I can make sure their drivers are properly backed up in a future release of DriverGrabber. We are still in Beta... and I'd like to have DriverGrabber functioning as well as I can without the need for DriveSearch.
Please test this version of DriverGrabber out and report back any issues. When reporting issues please try to post your DriverGrabber.log file to help narrow down a problem. If you get a "Not Found!" error on a specific file that can not be grabbed... please run a search on your entire system to verify the file even exists anywhere on your computer.
- Brito likes this
#2
Posted 07 June 2012 - 08:57 AM
Didnt back up the Network Card Drivers
Found my modem drivers.
Found Virtual Drivers.
Thanks!
#3
Posted 07 June 2012 - 01:52 PM
The best would be a way to scan all drivers but only keep certain ones by name or class
Thank you for sharing and listening.
#4
Posted 07 June 2012 - 04:41 PM
When DriverGrabber scans for drivers it only scans to grab OEM*.inf drivers... which are non-built in drivers. I suppose it would be smart for DriverGrabber to ignore skipping LAN / WLAN drivers from Microsoft which are from an OEM*.inf file. Since I suppose there is a possibility that they were from Microsoft update and not built in. I'll look into doing that in the next release.
But if they are not from an OEM*.inf file you should not need them backed up.
#5
Posted 07 June 2012 - 05:54 PM
I need to backup those drivers for import to PE. I currently use Smart Driver Backup for this which works fine except it doesn't allow me to select which drivers to backup by name or class, only ALL or Non-M$. I can backup all and use scripts to discard the ones I don't need but it would be nice to choose which drivers to backup in the first place.
I'm including a couple inf's as examples of drivers, listed as M$ that are not natively supported in PE. If this was not (one of) the intended uses for your program than just disregard my posts and thanks again for sharing
msinf.zip 4.08KB 3 downloads
#6
Posted 07 June 2012 - 06:29 PM
As far as I can tell this LAN driver is built into the operating system. So DriverGrabber would not make any attempt to back it up. That is why even if you check the DriverGrabber.log file you would not even see it as a Skipped Driver.
In the next release I will work on adding an option into the DriverGrabber.ini file that would allow it to back up built in drivers as well. I may even allow create a simple gui for allowing you to select which drivers you wish to backup. Not sure if the gui would make it into the next release though. But I am leaning toward having the gui an optional feature. I like that DriverGrabber is a simple One Click Driver Backup utility which backs up all the necissary drivers only.
It would be nice if there is some way that I can tell the difference between a built in PE driver and one that needs to be backed up. Then I could build in an option in the DriverGrabber.ini file for One Click PE Drivers backup. But for that I would need help from the users who have knowledge in that area.
#7
Posted 07 June 2012 - 07:35 PM
Yes, this is the missing piece of the puzzle.It would be nice if there is some way that I can tell the difference between a built in PE driver and one that needs to be backed up. Then I could build in an option in the DriverGrabber.ini file for One Click PE Drivers backup.
The closest I've come is scanning for certain driver CLASS e.g. Net, Media, Display, Processor etc. but again, I'm stuck with backing up ALL drivers first, then saving the ones I want for import. This takes time and space that could be saved by backing up only those classes to begin with. Is something like this possible, backing up (all) drivers by class?
I'm sure I can't tell you anything you don't already know but I'm certainly willing to test or help in any way I can
#8
Posted 08 June 2012 - 02:59 AM
#9
Posted 08 June 2012 - 03:40 AM
Looking forward to hearing others input
#11
Posted 08 June 2012 - 09:00 AM
I'd rather have some honest feedback from fellow users and try to implement requested features that would benefit DriverGrabber. I don't want to change DriverGrabber to function just like another program.
My issue with other Driver Backup programs has always been that they have problems successfully backing up all of the needed drivers files. I wrote the old version of DriverGrabber way back in 2007. To this day it has been getting hundreds of downloads a week at FileForum. That's the reason I have decided to update it and begin to finish implementing the features that I originally intended to implement.
The old version of DriverGrabber used devcon in it. But this new version is completely independent and reads the registry and inf files in windows to successfully backup your drivers. Which allowed me to make it work in a PE environment as well.
As of now DriverGrabber 2.0 is in Beta... so it is bound to have small glitches. But so far it seems pretty solid backing up most drivers. I don;'t think it is far off from being flawless.
So I need the help from everyone. If you run it on your system... please post your DriverGrabber.log file so that I can take a look at it and make sure it is grabbing all of the driver files as intended. Without help... it will be difficult for DriverGrabber to become flawless.
Thanks!
#12
Posted 11 June 2012 - 06:34 AM
#13
Posted 11 June 2012 - 10:52 AM
#14
Posted 11 June 2012 - 11:07 AM
#15
Posted 11 June 2012 - 05:49 PM
Beta 3:
Fixed - Issue creating folder for DriverNames with characters that are not usable in a directory name. Like /* and so on. Now invalid characters are deleted.
#16
Posted 11 June 2012 - 06:03 PM
I tried your latest beta, and it saved all 6! Only *then* did I see the backslash in the driver name!
Beta 3 saved it correctly to "Intel® ICH7MMDH SATA AHCI Controller"
Thanks! I'll run more tests later...
#17
Posted 12 June 2012 - 03:47 AM
In Beta 4 I am gonna change invalid characters into underscores. I also have fixed a couple other minor bugs in Beta 4 as well.
Also... to help speed up the Grabbing process I am adding a feature that will make DriverGrabber remember the previous directory where it finds a driver file... then it will first look in that same directory for the next driver file. Since a lot of drivers are located in the same directory it should speed up finding driver files. Especially on drivers that DriverGrabber is having a hard time finding files.
#18
Posted 12 June 2012 - 08:10 AM
#19
Posted 12 June 2012 - 02:47 PM
First thing I'm running into: I have some old Inexq HU001r LAN-USB adapters lying around, they have come in handy in the past, and I'm sure there will be some kind of "emergency" in the future when I can use them. So that's another one I attached to the Vaio. I installed the drivers (NETHU001.INF, NETHU001.SYS and NETHU001.CAT), only to notice the .CAT is a dummy file 2 bytes in size. Very strange, because I actually had an official CD lying around with the driver on it!
From the DriverGrabber log I see that under [Skipped Drivers] it lists the Inexq adapter, with "No Cat File Found" (as expected).
Now should we just forget about drivers like this one? Or should DriverGrabber have an option to save drivers like this one anyway? (I really don't know if drivers with dummy CAT files like these are common.....)
- Brito likes this
#20
Posted 12 June 2012 - 04:26 PM
Let me know how all of your tests go. If you have any troublesome drivers... please post your DriverGrabber.log file and any inf files the drivers pertain to. Also if you come across drivers that need to use the DriveSearch feature a lot please post those as well. I want to limit the need for DriveSearch as much as possible.
BTW in the upcoming beta... I have added the ability to set the backup location in the DriverGrabber.ini. You will also be able to use specific Macros in the path. Like if @ComputerName is used in the path DriverGrabber will replace it with the computer name of the live system... or the computer name of the Offline system that is being backed up. @HomeDrive will be converted to the path to the System Home Drive of the system being backed up. @Browse will force DriverGrabber to pop up a browse window to allow the user to ask for a destination.
So if this is in the DriverGrabber.ini:
[Options]
Destination=@BrowseDrivers@ComputerName
DriverGrabber will ask for your location... then it will backup to your [Destination]Drivers[ComputerName]
I also will code into DriverGrabber to log in the DriverGrabber.log if it had to use DriveSearch on any files it found.
#21
Posted 13 June 2012 - 10:46 AM
But if you choose to keep it as it is, I'm not complaining...
#22
Posted 13 June 2012 - 03:40 PM
#23
Posted 13 June 2012 - 04:49 PM
#24
Posted 14 June 2012 - 05:13 AM
#25
Posted 14 June 2012 - 03:27 PM
XP from the 3rd partition had its drivers added in the "normal" manner, then DriverGrabber is used to backup the drivers.
XP from the 2nd partition is a "clean" XPSP3, that I can constantly make "clean" again by restoring a Ghost backup.
I tested beta 4 for the "NoCat" option: I installed the LAN-to-USB adapter in "full XP" that had a dummy .cat file of only 2 bytes. Then I ran DriverGrabber, it made a clean backup. It didn't create a dummy .cat file, so I thought there might be trouble ahead. I rebooted to the "clean XP" (no wlan or network cable attached), then inserted the LAN-USB adapter. The system asked for a driver, I pointed to the driver backed up by DriverGrabber beta 4. Everything worked fine! I attached a network cable and had a perfect connection.
So all this testing for just one purpose: If I ever come across an XP system with boot problems, I can use WinPE_SE, run DriverGrabber, and backup even drivers without .cat files. Great work, Siginet!!!
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