A driver is a software program that is required to establish a link
between various hardware devices and application programs installed on
your computer. Typically, an operating system comes with a set of
driver definitions that helps you install different peripherals.
However, most of the time, a device driver is shipped along with your
device and needs to be installed on your computer to enable the device
to work.
You need to regularly update these drivers to avoid errors, system
hang-ups and crashes that occur because of corrupt or outdated drivers.
Commonly, driver errors occur because of following reasons:
- Driver incompatibility with the operating system or peripheral device.
- Hardware malfunction.
- Defective driver definition.
- Insufficient system resources.
- Device not properly connected to the system.
- Corrupted Registry.
The following are some of the common driver errors that you may encounter while working on your Windows computer:
“Windows cannot initialize the device driver for this hardware. (Code 37)”
“Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)
“STOP: 0xC0000221 unknown hard errorC:\Winnt\System32\Ntdll.dll (or another specific file or driver)”
While fixing a driver error, the first thing that you need to do is
to ensure that your device is properly connected to your computer and
is turned on. For example, error code 37
may generate if your device is not properly connected to the computer
or if the driver of the device you are trying to use is faulty. Most of
the time, we fail to check these simple things and start complaining
about problems with the device.
In case this is not the problem, there might be a problem with the
driver itself. For example, error code 39 generally occurs if required
driver files are missing or because of a corrupt binary file. The error
may also occur if there is an input/output problem.
The first step in fixing a driver error is to identify the device that is generating the error. To do this, you need to go to Control panel, select System Properties, and then on the Hardware tab, select the Device manger option.
In the Device Manager window that is displayed, you can easily
identify the problem device because it should be marked with a yellow
triangular icon comprising a black exclamation mark. You can check the
device status and the reason behind the error by double-clicking on the
device name.
An error may occur because of the following reasons:
- Driver is outdated: In this case, to fix the error you need to update your driver definitions. To do this, on the Driver tab of the device properties dialog box, click the Update Driver
button. Next, follow the screen instructions to update your device. It
is recommended that you download the latest driver from the device
manufacturer’s Web site before starting the process to make the driver
update process more simple and quick.
- Error after installing driver update: In this case, you need to click on the Roll Back Driver button to go back to previous version of the driver.
- Corrupt driver: To repair a corrupt driver you need to uninstall and then reinstall the driver. To do this, select the Uninstall button on the Driver tab. After the driver is uninstalled, restart your computer and the driver will be reinstalled automatically.
Errors, such as the Ntdll.dll error
may occur due to various reasons, such as a corrupt version of the DLL
file, corrupt hardware drivers, and so on. Most of the time, you can
resolve these errors by rebooting your system, reinstalling the corrupt
driver or by updating the version of your service pack.