Quote Originally Posted by Aviatrixie
..I know I'll need the Via chipset drivers, the video drivers, and likely drivers for the CD-rom and the CD-RW. I do have the disk for the ethernet card so we're good to go there, but I can't tell about the dial-up modem. It appears to be a generic driver and the Modem is a Diamond PCI modem. Does that mean it's using a driver that came with Windows XP?

Anyway, I'd appreciate your input on which drivers I'll need to have on CD before I format and reinstall his HD...
Given all the why's & wherefores, what I'd do in your position, is 'just go for it' & zap the lot, as long as you've got another working machine available to ask questions via & get any files you might need so that you can transfer them onto your son's machine, should my prediction of 'this one doesn't look tricky' turn out to be false ..

Windows has drivers natively for 99.9% of cd drives for reading (the writing bit gets added by any burning software) & if at the minute windows is 'happily' managing to use either 'standard hcf' or 'standard hcl' modem drivers (look in device manager ), it means that your modem is 'generic' (or at least has a 'standard' chipset), & hopefully should just get found as windows has some drivers in it which can work.

The only thing we are likely to have trouble with, is onboard sound, which always seems problematical even when you do have the right drivers & know exactly what it is ! .. but counting bridges & chickens springs to mind for that, so we'll cross that chicken (I don't know with what ! ) when we get to it