I bought Driver Detective to re-install update drivers on my pcs after formatting my drives every now and again for various reasons.
It has since expired after a year .
Could anyone explain in simple terms if I can backup the current drivers to cd in case I need to format at any time without buying a program again

its one thing to back them up.
But its another to Install them.

If you have the original Drivers as a zip or exe file you should be ok.

If they have been installed and there in your system then its not straight forward as driver files can install in various places.

What operating system are you using?
I ask because many new systems are reconsigned out the box.
You may only need a motherboard CD to get you up and running.

Hope that helps.

I'd just make sure you have the network drivers and then once you've reinstalled get on the net and download the latest from the manufacturer or let Windows Update do it (making sure you know the make and model numbers of your critical components).

Derek what you may be better off doing is creating a image of your system after a clean install.

You will have all your drivers intact and you can restore your drive with in a few minuets.

What operating system are you using as Windows 7 does a pretty good job at this. I think you need window 7 pro to directly back up to an external source.

I haven't got any original driver disks.
Using windows 7 on one pc and XP on another pc both having had the hard drives formatted at some time and the operating systems re-installed and drivers updated by driver detective.
It's a shame you only get it for one years usage.

Your windows 7 pc will probably have a recovery partition that you can use if it came pre installed when you bought it.

Win XP can be a struggle to get all the drivers.
But you can source the motherboard drivers from the manufacture most of the time.