Redetect ALL hardware?

[Hammy]

I replaced my motherboard a few months back. Since then a number of drivers
have been working intermittently (network works about every other restart,
sometimes stops working on wake from standby) and the device manager prevents
me from getting rid of certain pieces of hardware, even when not in use or
even on the computer. What I would like to do is to have windows clear the
hardware "cache" and redetect all the hardware like it would during Windows
Setup. This was possible with XP by creating a different hardware profile but
the hardware profile feature was removed in Vista. How can I force Vista to
redetect all hardware from scratch?

I am using Vista Ultimate by the way.

Thanks,
Eric

 

[Mick Murphy]

You can't! Wiping the Drive and reinstalling is the way to go!

 

[Hammy]

I'd really prefer to avoid that situation if at all possible. I'd have to buy
a new hard drive to transfer all my data. That's not really in the budget
right now. I tend to think there's got to be a way to do this.

 

[Hammy]

I tried that and it seems to help some (especially on overall system speed)
but the networking area still has a bunch of non-existent devices. I've also
had a usb problem but its only happened once so it might be coincidental.

 

[Gary Mount]

If you go into Device Manager, you can right click a device and select
uninstall.
Later you can select "scan for hardware changes" to install devices that are
not already installed.