SZ270P/C usb won't work

so I did the xp fresh install following the instructions on the sony site and everything seems to have gone well so far except I can't get it to recognize anything on the usb ports. I've tried two mice and an external dvd writer and everytime windows will ask me to install drivers and then say my hardware wasn't installed properly. Even if I try to install the original drivers that came with the equipment it still says that the install failed. I know it should work because I had it working before I did the fresh install. I've gone back and reinstalled all the drivers multiple times just to make sure I didn't skip anything by accident and still nothing. Does anyone have any idea what I could be missing? Is there some extra application that I missed somewhere? The only thing I can think of right now is that I must have installed something in the wrong order.

 

Did you try the Plug and Play registry patch?

You can download the file from the SZ semi clean install thread.

 

The registry patch is the way to go like what //MB said. Good luck! Everything should work fine and dandy after that.