Why Drivers Fail

While testing uncovers the presence of bugs, the more serious challenge is to analyze, isolate, and correct the source of the bug. The goal of this section is to provide the basis for the analysis of driver bugs. Drivers fail for specific reasons and some up-front thought about the ways in which they fail can start the elusive search for a bug in an orderly fashion.

Categories of Driver Errors

Drivers can fail in any number of interesting ways. Although it is not possible to give a complete list, the following sections describe some of the more common types of driver pathology.

HARDWARE PROBLEMS

It goes without saying (to a software developer, anyway) that there is always an even chance that the hardware itself is the source ...

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