Mystiq

But why would it start so suddenly? It also happens if I had my DVD (IDE) drive unplugged.

Eh? I'm not using Hibernate.

I've zipped a couple of the minidumps this BSOD has created so far. And now you mention PunkBuster, I did install the Quake 4 demo, but that was about 2 weeks ago. Minidump.zip

Three days ago I had a game (World of Warcraft) running and was watching TV while not playing and all of a sudden Windows 7 bluescreens with IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL in atapi.sys. I rebooted thinking it was a fluke only to get the same error just a few minutes later after running the game again. This happened about 4 or 5 times, even simply browsing the Internet, downloading a file, or copying files in Windows Explorer. Of my two hard drives, the bigger one has an installation of Windows XP, where the computer is perfectly stable in the middle of this string of Win7 BSODs (booting up again in 7 and it will still happen). Eventually I unplugged my DVD drive and it stopped. Also in the middle of all this, I checked my RAM with various utilities and it checked out ok. Two days later, it started again. I unplugged my bigger hard drive and so far it appears to have stopped again but I'm not hopeful because as I said Windows XP is fine. I'm not sure if this is a bug in Windows 7 or a genuine hardware problem. I do not have Daemon Tools or other CD drive emulation programs installed. I have absolutely no idea what would have started this. No new programs have been installed in about 4 weeks. I submitted this as a feedback within Windows 7 as well.