Back Up All Drivers Before Formatting Windows DISM Export
Your PC works perfectly today — every driver installed and tested. Before you format it and lose all that, spend two minutes exporting the drivers. After the fresh install, one command puts them all back.
✍️ Technical Anshu🪟 Windows 10 / 11⏱️ 5 minute job
🎥 Watch the full process in the video — all 4 driver methods, step-by-step
The painful part of formatting is never the Windows setup — it is the hour afterwards hunting drivers, especially for old or uncommon hardware. Windows already keeps a copy of every driver you installed in its driver store, and it gives you a built-in tool, DISM, to export the whole set to a folder. That folder becomes your personal driver pack: format freely, then restore everything at once, even with no internet connection. This is Method 4 from the video, in full detail.
Command Prompt (Administrator) — exporting the drivers
C:\Windows\System32> DISM /Online /Export-Driver /Destination:D:\DriverBackup
Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Exporting driver 1 of 28 ...
...
Exporting driver 28 of 28 ...
The operation completed successfully.
📁 D:\DriverBackup — one folder per driver, each with its .inf fileBackup ready
👆 What a successful export looks like — DISM counts through your installed drivers and ends with "The operation completed successfully."
1
Export All Drivers With One Command ⭐
Connect a pen drive or keep a separate partition ready — the backup must not live on the drive you are about to format
Right-click Start → Terminal (Admin) or Command Prompt (Run as administrator)
Run this command exactly (change D: to your backup drive letter): DISM /Online /Export-Driver /Destination:D:\DriverBackup
Wait for The operation completed successfully — then open the folder and confirm it holds many subfolders, one per driver
Optional check: pnputil /enum-drivers lists every third-party driver in the store with its provider name, so you can see what was backed up.
2
Format and Reinstall Windows Normally
Install Windows the way you always do. Do not worry about the missing-device list when the desktop first opens — your backup is about to fix it in one stroke. If the network driver is also missing, that is fine: this restore method needs no internet.
3
Restore Every Driver With One Command
Connect the pen drive or open the partition that holds DriverBackup
Open Command Prompt as Administrator again
Run: pnputil /add-driver D:\DriverBackup\*.inf /subdirs /install (adjust the drive letter to where your backup actually is)
pnputil works through every subfolder, installs the matching drivers and reports each one
Restart the PC and open Device Manager — the yellow marks should be gone
Prefer to restore a single device? In Device Manager, right-click it → Update driver → Browse my computer → point to the DriverBackup folder with subfolders included.
4
Finish With Windows Update
Your restored drivers are the versions that worked before formatting — stable, but maybe not the newest. End the job with Windows Update and the Optional updates → Driver updates section so anything with a genuine newer version gets it safely. Now keep the DriverBackup folder — it is a permanent rescue kit for this PC.
🛑 Honest note: this backup captures drivers, not the extra control-panel software some devices install alongside (printer suites, audio managers, RGB tools). Core devices will work fully after restore; for those extra apps, install the maker's package once more from the official site.
🎥 Watch the Complete Process in the Video
All 4 methods to download and install drivers — live demo, step-by-step.
It exports every third-party driver stored in the Windows driver store — the ones installed for your specific hardware, which are exactly the hard-to-find ones. Drivers that ship inside Windows itself are not exported, because the new Windows install already has them.
How big is a driver backup folder?
Usually between a few hundred MB and 2 to 3 GB, depending mostly on the graphics driver packages inside it. Any normal pen drive or a separate drive partition has more than enough space.
Can I restore these drivers on a different PC?
Only where the hardware matches. The backup is a copy of this machine's drivers, so it is perfect for the same PC after formatting. On a different model, Windows simply ignores the drivers that do not match its hardware.
This guide is based on the Technical Anshu driver video • Stuck on any step? Ask in the video comments — you will get a reply there 🙏