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Share your driver download links

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kc8eyt

Experienced Member
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Aug 7, 2020
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This seemed to be the best place to put this. I've been a PC tech for 30+ years and have saved every single driver I have ever come across. I uploaded my entire collection to archive.org last December to help others. However, even with a resource like archive.org and my personal collection I find that from time to time I need to find legacy drivers elsewhere.

Please share the URLs to your personal favorite or preferred resources for legacy drivers. I believe having these URLs in one place may be beneficial to many.

Also, if you have a collection of legacy drivers like I do please consider taking the time to upload them to archive.org. I am not in any way affiliated with the site. I simply noticed more and more people are doing this.
 
Wow. That is pretty awesome. I have only started doing this in last four or five years. You always hear once its on the internet it is forever... Apparently not for drivers though... Do you have a link for your archive on archive.org?
 
Shadow Lord said:
Wow. That is pretty awesome. I have only started doing this in last four or five years. You always hear once its on the internet it is forever... Apparently not for drivers though... Do you have a link for your archive on archive.org?
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Back in the late 90's/early 00's there were many driver sites where a tech could find drivers with ease. Over the years however most of these have turned into malware factories that can't be trusted. Companies also decided to start purging drivers instead of archiving them which is a shame.
 
Drivers.eu definitely has some obscure older drivers, I was able to track down a working copy of a Compaq Armada BIOS setup disk from that website as well as the correct MS-DOS drivers for the Armada 7400's CD-ROM drive.
 
TH2002 said:
Drivers.eu definitely has some obscure older drivers, I was able to track down a working copy of a Compaq Armada BIOS setup disk from that website as well as the correct MS-DOS drivers for the Armada 7400's CD-ROM drive.
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That site gets blocked from my work. So I am guessing there is something questionable about it.
 
Another great driver site, especially for the IBM PC, XT, and AT class computers.

http://ibm-pc.org/

This site had the Panasonic (Matsushita) CR-563-B CD-ROM drivers I needed for a Sound Blaster Easy 16 sound card and external Creative CD-ROM drive I just acquired.
 
LCARS said:
I have uploaded all my Softpaq drivers for Compaq computers here:
Softpaq (vinpaq.com)
From SP0001 to SP39537, as complete as I could get it.
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Thanks for this. I have a few different copies of Softpaq's now (some acquired from private sources, a "complete" set from archive.org, some from HP, etc.). I really need to put them all together and get rid of the dupes. Does your set included "old versions" and/or firmware files? The HP/Compaq sites tended to erase superseded Softpaqs so there are gaps. HP (but not Compaq) has also put firmware for old HW (think 1990s/2000s stuff) behind a paywall (been looking for this one for a while if anyone has it: https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/swd/detail?swItemId=co_47274_1#tab1). Sometimes those can be found in other archives - hence my trying to build a complete list.In any case thanks for your efforts!
 
Shadow Lord said:
Thanks for this. I have a few different copies of Softpaq's now (some acquired from private sources, a "complete" set from archive.org, some from HP, etc.). I really need to put them all together and get rid of the dupes. Does your set included "old versions" and/or firmware files? The HP/Compaq sites tended to erase superseded Softpaqs so there are gaps. HP (but not Compaq) has also put firmware for old HW (think 1990s/2000s stuff) behind a paywall (been looking for this one for a while if anyone has it: https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/swd/detail?swItemId=co_47274_1#tab1). Sometimes those can be found in other archives - hence my trying to build a complete list.In any case thanks for your efforts!
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Hi Shadow Lord, my downloads will always be free of course.... it's a hobby and passion not an income ;)
I'm afraid you have to check for that in my archive for yourself. I thought that every SP was released once and when a piece of software or driver was updated it got a new SP number? (I could be wrong of course.) My archive is about 144 GB big so a big chance that the driver you are looking for is there.
 
LCARS said:
Hi Shadow Lord, my downloads will always be free of course.... it's a hobby and passion not an income ;)
I'm afraid you have to check for that in my archive for yourself. I thought that every SP was released once and when a piece of software or driver was updated it got a new SP number? (I could be wrong of course.) My archive is about 144 GB big so a big chance that the driver you are looking for is there.
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Hi,

you are correct that a new SP number is assigned but HP (and I think Compaq) would then remove the old SP so that people would not download the "old" version. If your archive contains only the SP then it may not be there. However, if it contains the softlib directories as well then there is a chance it is in there.... Interestingly you can still find the old COMPAQ branded FW SP. It is only the ones that are HP branded that are behind a paywall. :confused:
 
LCARS said:
I have uploaded all my Softpaq drivers for Compaq computers here:
Softpaq (vinpaq.com)
From SP0001 to SP39537, as complete as I could get it.
Click to expand...

So I have been trying to dl the files from the file sharing site you are using with no luck. It downloads a few GB and craps out. I am currently downloading each folder individually which is slow going. You may want to consider a different file sharing site if you are looking for a long term solution.
 
Shadow Lord said:
So I have been trying to dl the files from the file sharing site you are using with no luck. It downloads a few GB and craps out. I am currently downloading each folder individually which is slow going. You may want to consider a different file sharing site if you are looking for a long term solution.
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Hi, the idea is more that one downloads a driver that they need. If one wants to download everything that's up to the user. Keeping 148gb online in another way will cost me too much. I'm also going to upload it all as 1 big Zip file to the internet archive.
 
LCARS said:
Hi, the idea is more that one downloads a driver that they need. If one wants to download everything that's up to the user. Keeping 148gb online in another way will cost me too much. I'm also going to upload it all as 1 big Zip file to the internet archive.
Click to expand...

The internet archive is a great idea. I think you can resume dl from there so that would be super helpful. I downloaded one folder at a time until I got it all. I am going to have to get your set with my other sets together and run duplicate finder program and get rid of all the duplicates (figure 99.9% of the files) and then create one set that I know to be complete. Unfortunately your set is only of the SP and no the other folders on the old Compaq FTP site. So I am still looking for the FW....
 
Shadow Lord said:
The internet archive is a great idea. I think you can resume dl from there so that would be super helpful. I downloaded one folder at a time until I got it all. I am going to have to get your set with my other sets together and run duplicate finder program and get rid of all the duplicates (figure 99.9% of the files) and then create one set that I know to be complete. Unfortunately your set is only of the SP and no the other folders on the old Compaq FTP site. So I am still looking for the FW....
Click to expand...

Well, if you ever find them, please let me know.
 
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