if a driver update goes awry, what can you do about it?

[Deleted]

i'm intending to update my drivers sometime later this week. however, i'm currently nearing the end of my school grade, and i got some files on my HDD that i absolutely don't want to lose. i know that driver updates are usually safe to perform, but just in case, i want to know what my options are for a back-out procedure. is a simple windows restoration point enough, or does it take more than that?

[XenuMC]

Yeah, either a restoration point or boot into safe-mode and uninstall the driver. I think Windows can also recognize a bad driver and disable it automatically. If you have nothing to backup to, you can also put the most important files in .zip archives and upload them to wherever. Like Dropbox or even Gmail with how much space they give you. Just email yourself the links.

[Mitak]

You can always roll back a driver to the previous release you were using. But i suggest saving your files to another place, USB mem key or something, its always good to have copies of important documents.

[Deleted]

well, i just uploaded those files to my dropbox. so i'll now make a restoration point and then i'll see how i'll do those updates.

[Deleted]

There are several steps on 'bad drivers'.

The most common is just that the device itself doesn't work quite properly. A simple rollback (windows will give you this option) to the driver that works fixed that.

More severe cases may result in system instability or outright inability to boot - but those are exceedingly rare, and mainly only apply to more complex hardware like graphics cards. However, by starting Safe mode (repeatedly press F8 while the machine boots up until a menu appears), Windows will resort to only using its own generic driver base which will allow you to then do a rollback or other correction. By default, network drivers are also turned off, but you have the option to use Safe Mode with networking (if you need to access the internet).

Even in the highly magical event that the driver blows up your OS completely - all you need to do is simply put your hard drive into another machine, or start your computer using a secondary operating system - such as a Linux installation that sits on a USB stick; after which you can move the data to someplace (online, secondary drive, whatever) where you can store it for safekeeping so that you can reformat and re-install your machine.

Just about the only thing that makes data permanently unaccessible is if the hard drive itself dies (and a driver update won't do that).

[Poodles]

Yep, as already stated, if a driver fails to install correctly or gets corrupted (yes it does happen), booting into safe mode has never failed me.

Now if you were flashing BIOS, that's a whole different can of worms...

[Deleted]

well, i downloaded the drivers from http://support.acer.com/us/en/produc...1&modelId=2058, so i hope i can trust them.

---------- Post added 2011-06-08 at 03:58 PM ----------

i've found a website that states i can use the Acer eRecovery management tool to make a disc backup of my drivers and applications. weird part is, i ran that program, and it first told me my drivers are incomplete and then it would only need 1.7 GB free on a disc. is this normal? anyone else with experience with that tool? it's available by default with an acer laptop.

---------- Post added 2011-06-08 at 06:22 PM ----------

i've got another question: if i have to go into safe mode to revert the driver, is that as easy as right-clicking the driver in "device management" and selecting "uninstall"? or is it yet another way of doing this?