Thing 25, or: I'll Take 'New Device Driver' for $65

Or; Wherein I Rock The Computer.

The dvd ripper/burner is working. To start with, I completely uninstalled its software incl registry, then reloaded it, which didn't do anything, so -- even though it was a shot in the dark, I'm learning a lot about how any given computer problem can be caused by anything, including an overabundance of cat hair in the case -- I decided to take the Blue Screen Of Death at its word and assume the IRQL driver was not less or equal because there was something WRONG with it.

[The next best option being to restore the system to some time back in, like, November. Which might have A: worked, B: not worked, C: wiped my computer completely. The Love Bunny says that's happened to him more than once at work, when restoring other people's computers. Both A and B options would have been available with Method 3: reimaging the whole damn thing. I mean, it all depended on whether there really WAS a driver problem, or it was something completely different.

Both of those things would be in lieu of taking the box to the Geek Squad, where they might or might not fix it AND it would cost a lot of money.

Reading up on "IRQL driver not less or equal" online offered up many fixes that supposedly worked -- everything from the aforementioned removal of cat hair to things so techno I couldn't possibly understand them. None of them actually did anything about the driver itself, as far as I could tell. Nobody suggested that.]

I bought driver update software and ran it. It said the Atapi-related driver was outdated [okay, DVD driver here] and strongly suggested one NOT MESS WITH IT. Several times it suggested this thing. Like, little windows popped up saying, "This is outdated. DO NOT FIX THIS or your computer will end up a flaming ball of wreckage. If it does, don't be looking at us, kthxbye."

I had TLB step in. Srsly, I have no idea what people do without the in-home sysadmin. The computer *itself* tried several times to prevent him from replacing this driver. In the end, he wasn't sure if he actually had because of the ubiquitous error messages. But whatever happened, the DVD ripper/burner now works just fine.

Go me!