With the rapid development of computer technology, computer systems have been widely used in the safety-critical field where software systems are important enabling components. In computer systems, device drivers act as the bridge between software and devices. Due to the complexity resulted from the fact that device drivers are associated with platforms, operating systems and devices all together, the development of device drivers is very difficult and costly. Errors and faults in device drivers often lead to system failures, causing irreparable damage to the safety-critical applications. Aiming at the assurance of reliability and correctness, the paper presents a survey of related methods and techniques from three aspects: failure isolation and recovery, correctness analysis and verification, model based design and complexity control. The mainstream methods and techniques are evaluated with their pros and cons, which lays the foundation for the further research.