My friend has plans on reinstalling windows xp pro and ask if it would be possible to save the installed device drivers that currently exist on the system now and copy and paste after the reinstall.
I have never tried or ever thought it is possible.

I appreciate any advice.

Thanks

I wouldn't have thought it will be a simple task to track down all the installation files or all the installed files for the hardware.

Why not just see the hardware thats installed before you format, download them save them to CDRom and then put them back later, win Xp is very good, most drivers are carried on the install disk.

If your unsure of what you have, download and run sisandra or Aida32 system information tools

you can get a program from http://driverguidetoolkit.com/ on a free trial basis which identifies the drivers on your system, this might be what your looking for.

Why not save the system32 folder to disk as this is where all your systems drivers are stored?

Because not all drivers and files are stored there.

As Nutty said, XP has most of the drivers, and if not, just download and burn them to CD.