dv2413/Vista USB problem - device recognition doesn't work

My wife has a dv2413cl laptop that I bought at Costco a few months ago. It has Vista Home Premium on it, and has been working fine since we got it.

A few days ago, she complained that her HP USB wireless mouse stopped working. After investigating the obvious, I found that everytime I plugged in the USB plug into the PC, windows attempted to load the driver, but failed everytime. I then plugged in my WD 250Gb USB drive to back up her PC and the same driver recognition problem occured. I then tried a USB wired mouse and the same thing happened.

I followed the suggested "fix" from the help system, and that was to load a windows update that would fix this problem, but when I went to run it I received an error saying that THIS UPDATE DOES NOT APPLY TO YOUR SYSTEM.

I then uninstalled (from Device Manager) all of the USB hardware which reinstalled itself and the problem stayed. I then updated the BIOS and loaded all current drivers from the HP website, and the problem still stays.

Next step is a Windows reinstall, but I can't get the backup drive to work because the driver will not load.

ANYONE HAVE A CLUE WHAT IS GOING ON??

Thanks!

 

Have you tried a different USB port?

Also do you have the latest windows updates/patches?

 

Yes. All updated, all patched.

I went out and bought her a new mouse just to be sure everything was cool. I plugged the thing in, Windows said it found it and installed it. However, the mouse did not work.

I went to device manager, and there was a yellow circle UNKNOWN DEVICE under mice and pointing devices. I right clicked and said update driver. Windows came back after a short time and said "The latest driver is already installed for this device", and it listed it as a Logitech Mouse in that info window. However, in Device Manager, it was still listed as an unknown device, and of course it did not work.

Go figure.