How to Debug a Device Driver

Perhaps your device is not working properly, and you suspect it is because of the device driver rather than the device itself. Try to debug the device driver before tearing out your hair. This eHow can help.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

1. Open the driver for the device and set a "breakpoint" in the "DLLENTRY" or "DllMain" entry point of the driver. In order to do this, you may have to reboot the device you are targeting, and reload the driver to make sure the breakpoint is executed.
2. Run the debugger to see if the driver loads as it should. It should reach the breakpoint you created in Step 1. If it works, go on to the next step. If this does not happen, the driver didn't load as it should. Go to troubleshooting for the driver when this happens, as you try to debug a device driver.
3. Set another breakpoint, but this time in the "XXX_Init (Device Manager)" entry point for the driver. Go through the initialization process of your driver as you try to debug the device driver. Run the debugger again, attempting to confirm that the driver is recognized by the device manager, and is working properly.
4. Add more breakpoints as you attempt to debug a device driver. Add breakpoints at the entry point of various interface functions such as "XXX_Close (Device Manager)", XXX_IOControl (Device Manager), XXX_Read (Device Manager), and more.
5. Try implementing stream interface by replacing "XXX" with something that matches specific implementation, such as DEVFLAGS_NAKEDENTRIES.
   Test what you have done by running the debugger again.
6. Test what you have done by running the debugger again.
7. Verify that the "interrupt service thread" is functioning by setting breakpoints in the IST of the driver. Run the debugger again to see it the driver is working properly as you attempt to debug a device driver. If this runs properly, then you have successfully debugged the device manager.

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