Completely remove all traces of ATI and Radeon drivers-how?

McGraw · 16-02-2008, 10:05

Hello.

Recently, in the middle of reading a web page, my laptop with a mobility 7000 IGP displayed an error that said something along the lines of my graphics driver.dll failing. My screen then switched to 640X480 4 bit colour and wouldn't reboot. The screen would stay black as it went to the log in screen and then blue screen shortly after.

System restore did not solve the problem.

I rebooted in safe mode and uninstalled the display adapter and all related drivers/software.

The pc rebooted ok but when it came to installing the drivers again, it suffered from the same problem. After many attempts of sorting it out I have managed to get it to display at 1024x768 native in 16 bit but control panel thinks it is 640x480 4 bit again. This is with the generic VGA driver.

If I try and install the ATI or Omega drivers then the problem resurfaces.

So, I assume a dodgy file is lurking somewhere.

How do I completely nuke all traces? The registry? A utility?

Cheers.

16-02-2008, 10:16

ccleaner will get rid of the unused registry files

cleshe · 16-02-2008, 10:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by McGraw

Hello.

Recently, in the middle of reading a web page, my laptop with a mobility 7000 IGP displayed an error that said something along the lines of my graphics driver.dll failing. My screen then switched to 640X480 4 bit colour and wouldn't reboot. The screen would stay black as it went to the log in screen and then blue screen shortly after.

System restore did not solve the problem.

I rebooted in safe mode and uninstalled the display adapter and all related drivers/software.

The pc rebooted ok but when it came to installing the drivers again, it suffered from the same problem. After many attempts of sorting it out I have managed to get it to display at 1024x768 native in 16 bit but control panel thinks it is 640x480 4 bit again. This is with the generic VGA driver.

If I try and install the ATI or Omega drivers then the problem resurfaces.

So, I assume a dodgy file is lurking somewhere.

How do I completely nuke all traces? The registry? A utility?

Cheers.

You need Driver cleaner pro, which you can download from http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=745

McGraw · 16-02-2008, 11:02

Cheers.

Will try them.

**Kymmy** · 16-02-2008, 11:42

All the Radeon/ATI - drivers/catalyst software used to come with it's own cleaner. Check the installed directory.

Failing that here's the link directly to the catalyst/ATI file remover

Kymmy

Eric55 · 16-02-2008, 11:58

I always use Driver Cleaner Pro get it from here. http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=745

McGraw · 16-02-2008, 13:09

i used driver cleaner pro and now my machine won't even boot into safe mode. I reckon i will have to reinstall windows now. Will my itunes songs still play or will there be drm issues? Cheers.

**Graham M** · 16-02-2008, 13:32

As long as you own the tunes and assuming they're in a DRMd format, you will have to log into Apple when you reimport them before you can play them normally.

16-02-2008, 13:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by McGraw

i used driver cleaner pro and now my machine won't even boot into safe mode. I reckon i will have to reinstall windows now. Will my itunes songs still play or will there be drm issues? Cheers.

try a repair install instead

McGraw · 16-02-2008, 14:29

no worries. They are my songs. At what point does the repair option appear? I always thought it was before the big yellow bar after the file system options. I'm worried about doing a proper format before i've got my data off it with a notebook drive adapter. Cheers.

16-02-2008, 19:33

it will say you have this operating system installed to repair click blar to install fresh blar (or words to that effect)

McGraw · 18-02-2008, 12:08

It doesn't which I thought was strange because I have installed/reinstalled Windows more times than I care to remember and I always thought it happened at that stage.

Must be because the laptop only has a restore CD and my copy of XP doesn't recognise it.

Any other suggestions before I stick the laptop hard drive in my desktop and do a full reinstall?

Cheers.

patrickp · 20-02-2008, 22:55

Long time since I added/removed anything in Windows, but AIR this is how I used to remove ATI drivers:

First, go to ControlPanel -> Add/Remove Programs and uninstall the ATI software and driver: uninstall any MultiMedia Centre software first, then Control Panel/Centre and finally the driver itself - select all the card instances there. However, if the ATI Catalyst Software Removal Utility (not sure of the name; it's something like that) is showing, don't do that yet. When you uninstall the Display Driver, you'll be given the option to reboot - do so.

When you've rebooted, go back to Add/Remove Programs, select the Software Removal Utility and do that. Reboot when asked. If you don't have it showing in the list, download it (Kymmy's link above) and run it.

Open Windows Explorer and delete the ATI installation folder on your root drive. Then go into Program Files and delete any ATI folders there - there shouldn't be, but check.

Then go to your Windows/WINNT folder and search for 'ati*.*' Delete the lot. If you're running a VIVO or AIW card, go to the Windows/Inf folder, open each of the oem#.inf (where # is a number) files - they're text files - and delete any that are for ATI devices.

Empty your Recycle bin and your system should be clean.

Edit: no idea if this applies to Vista.

nffc · 20-02-2008, 23:25

the important thing is running drivercleaner in safe mode and then running ccleaner registry scans until no issues remain.

McGraw · 21-02-2008, 13:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by nffc

the important thing is running drivercleaner in safe mode and then running ccleaner registry scans until no issues remain.

Too late for that now.

I ran it in normal mode, the PC wouldn't boot so I took the drive out to put in a desktop and now it doesn't work at all.

New laptop ahoy