TechTips for Using Driver Genius to Backup Your Drivers

If you have ever had to rebuild a computer you know that it can be a pain to go and find all the different drivers for your PC. There can be anywhere from 30 to a million drivers, which is a joke, but seriously it can be an in-depth process trying to find all the drivers you need to get your PC back to good working order. Well there is a free tool that can help you backup your drivers, so if your PC does crash you will have all the drivers you need already backed up (note: back the drivers up to a CD/DVD/Thumb Drive).

Driver Genius is a free tool that can be used to quickly backup all of your computers drivers. This tool is not only free but it's easy to use, is recommended by many top sites and won't slow down your computer.

So let's backup all of our drivers so we can have peace of mind that if our system crashes right after doing this we won't have to spend an hour or more finding and downloading all of our system drivers again. First, you will want to get the program, I recommend getting it from CNET HERE. I know on the site it says Driver Genius is not free, but the portion of the program we will be using is, you don't have to pay a cent for the program to backup all your existing drivers. If you do happen to want to have the program update all of your drivers for you then you have to drop $30 bucks.

So now that you have the program you will want to install it and just use all the default settings unless you are an advanced user and know what you are doing. Once it is installed launch the program by double clicking the icon on your desktop. It will ask you if you want to update the driver's database, click NO since we won't be using this functionality of the program.

The next prompt that will appear is for scanning your computer for driver issues, again you can just close this since we won't be using the program to update or fix any drivers (this costs money and we aren't interested in spending money).

Now you should be at the Driver Guide main window. On the left hand side there are several options to choose from, we want to click on Backup Drivers. Driver Guide will look at your computer for a few seconds (could be minutes depending on your machines speed) and then it will come up with a view with a few driver options. Typically is will have Currently Used, Original Windows Drivers, and Disconnected devices. It may have more or less depending on your systems configuration.

We want to un-check the Original Windows Drivers and any other check box, so that only the Currently Used has a check in the box. This is going to save only the drivers we use; these are the most important drivers. Click the Next button and it will take you to the backup options screen.

You can select how you want the drivers backed up, there are several options to choose from, and the default is the option I generally choose. The others might be more beneficial to you, if you select each one, it gives a brief description of what the option is used for and you can choose if it better suits you.

For this example we will be using the default option which simply puts all the drivers your computer uses into a folder that you can later install from. Click next, and Driver Genius backs up all of your Drivers to the selected folder (note, this folder should be on a thumb drive or after its created burn it to a CD/DVD - DO NOT LEAVE DRIVERS ON YOUR PC HARD DRIVE).

The reason you should make a copy of these drivers on a CD/DVD/Thumb Drive is if your PC crashes you won't be able to get these back, which means backing them up is a waste of time.

Now let's go find the drivers we just backed up. If you used the defaults it should be in a folder in you're My Documents folder called -

Driver Genius\Backup\Driver Backup (DATE)-Random Number

Open the folder and you will find a list of folders; these are the drivers on your PC that we just backed up. Each folder is named similarly to the driver that is within the folder. For instance I have a RADEON 7000 Series folder; this is for my RADEON video card. Now that you have all of your drivers you need to burn them to the CD/DVD or move them to a Thumb Drive or external hard drive.

That is all there is to it for backing up your Drivers. Now your computer can crash whenever it wants and you will be more prepared to quickly re-install and get back to work.