I need some USB help...
 

Ok, so I've had a USB hub for quite some time. It's been working perfectly, no problems. The other day it's gone from my devices. I unplug it, rehook it, XP says it found "unknown USB device"... so I let it install, uninstall it, shut everything down, unplug all the USB crap so I just have the hub hooked up and same shit. So I let it install and check out the driver it's assigning -- none. And it won't let me. I've tried to force a driver onto it, everything. Even bought a new hub, to see if it was that. The ONLY thing I havent' done is tried to plug the hub into another USB port on the computer (mainly because it's a pain in the ass)... is that pretty much my only course of action right now? Or does anybody here have any brilliant ideas? I need that ****ing hub, and I needed it last night!

Unplug the hub from the MOBO, uninstall, reinstall, the plug the hub back in when the computer has restarted from the reinstall.
USB gets effed up if the device is already connected when the software is installed.

The problem is it won't install drivers for the hub without it being plugged in. This hub, and a TON like it I've seen, is they use XP default drivers. I've uninstalled and reinstalled a dozen times with nothing attached to the hub. Doesn't work.

have you enabled windows xp recovery,

Restore to the Last Known Good Configuration

Might check your CMOS. My dads changed like yours and for some reason in the CMOS, the ports were turned off. I had to go in and turn on the USB ports before they would work again.

Everything else works on the USB so it's not that. Talking with someone else they suggested (after hearing everything I've done to this ****ing machine since I posted this) that somehow my USB drivers got corrupted. So he thinks I need to locate my USB drivers and completely de them, forcing them to reinstall from the CD.

:shrug: It's worth a shot... I really, REALLY don't want to totally reinstall.

I thought you already tried removing the drivers, ...agreed.

I've deleted from the hardware manager, yes, but the drivers still exist on the drive. When you reinstall the hardware it doesn't ask for the drivers to be installed, it just does it. However, if I go deep in to the XP files and physically delete the .inf files and driver files, it will require the XP cd to reinstall the hardware, thus giving me a brand new driver that isn't corrupt. Follow?