When Windows fails to install the drivers of an hardware, it identifies it as an unknown device in the Windows device manager. The fact that windows is identifying a hardware as an unknown device means that the hardware is recognized by windows, however it won’t function properly until the drivers for the hardware are installed.
There are many third party software that boast about finding out the drivers for all the hardware installed on your PC, however until and unless the hardware installed on your PC is from a reputed and branded company, most software won’t be able to find and install the drivers for an unknown device.
Fortunately windows has an built in feature that automatically tries to identify an unknown device and download the respective driver for it. However if this fails, windows will identify the device as an unknown device and you will have to resort to an second option for finding the correct drivers for the unknown device.
Generally every hardware manufacturer provides the drivers for its products as free downloads from their websites. In case a newly installed hardware in your computer is identified as an unknown device, you can Google the hardware’s model number and you might stumble upon websites or forums where someone with the same problem had it solved.
For those who want to find and download the drivers for any unknown device on their PC’s, Here’s how you can do so.
How to Find and Download Drivers for Unknown Devices in Windows
- Step 1: Right click on My computer and Select Properties.
- Step 2: Select Device manager.
- Step 3: Now right click on any Unknown device and select Properties.
- Step 4: You should see the following message “ The drivers for this device are not installed. (Code 28).To find a driver for this device, click Update Driver.”
- Step 5: Select the Details tab and right click to Copy the first value for Hardware ID.
- Step 6: Open Google, paste the copied value and search for it.
- Step 7: Now carefully read all the search results in the first page and you should find out a link to download the drivers for the unknown device installed on your computer.
That’s it, within a few minutes you should be able to figure out from where to download the drivers. However you should also verify the trustfulness of the source from where you are downloading the drivers or else you can be installing viruses on your PC.
