Stop Error From Sound Driver?

My motherboard is an ASUS P4V8X-MX with on-board audio, C-Media AC97 version CMI9761A. The latest version of the driver and operating software from the C-Media website is dated December 2004.I have two hard drives, both the exact same type (Western Digital WDC 3200JB, 320 GB), both with Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 installed. On my second hard drive, I continue to be able to play DVDs on any of my DVD player programs that I wish, with no problems. However, on my primary hard drive, I have run into problems. Some time ago, I don't remember anything about what might have caused it, both Windows Media Player 11 and InterActual Player 2.6 (http://www.interactual.com/) stopped playing my DVD's. I could still use InterVideo WinDVD or my ATI Radeon X700's DVD playing software, with no problems, but WMP and IAP stopped playing them. WMP would give me an error that, when I clicked "Web help," said it was related to my Sound driver. I went to Windows Update and downloaded the following update:

Windows XP C Media Electronics Incorporation - Sound - C-Media AC97 Audio Device Tuesday, August 21, 2007 Windows Update.But this only made the problem worse, not better-- now when I try to use WMP or IAP to play a DVD, my computer screen just up and suddenly goes dark and I hear the unmistakeable sound of my computer simply up and shutting down, and then it does a total system reboot. After the reboot I get a popup saying the computer has recovered from a Stop Error, caused when a Device Driver suddenly "stops" the operating system.This is a very serious problem because a number of my DVD's are specially optimized to work with InterActual Player and automatically start it up when I put the DVD in the drive. If I try to uninstall the program, then the next time I put one of those DVD's in the drive it absolutely absolutely ***ABSOLUTELY*** forces my computer to reinstall the software immediately.