So I did an almost perfect XP install on my sz650

I zapped Vista back to HELL, where it belongs, made a new partition, got everything up and running with XP in only a couple of hours. Audio, video, got all my apps on, I'm a happy camper thinking "ok, what's the fuss? that wasn't so hard!"

Then I started plugging in peripherals and had the sudden realization that the USB ports are not working. So.. I put on all the drivers and utilities from the downgrade FTP site. What am I missing? Something obvious, I'm sure.

 

USB should work with or without drivers. Try other USB peripherals, because I think it's just a problem with that one item. If it isn't then your XP installation is either faulty or your physical USB port is damaged. Go to control panel, and click Add new hardware. See if there is a questionmark on anything, and see if it's a USB port. IF it is, then you'll most likely just have to pop in your XP cd.

 

You can also check Device Manager to see if there's something awry with the USB ports. Click Start, Right-Click My Computer, choose Properties, choose the Hardware Tab, and then the Device Manager button. The Universal Serial Bus Connectors section shouldn't have any question marks or exclamation points by it; if it does, it may be able to tell you what's wrong.

Also check Other Devices. You may have a bunch of currently nonworking devices there that need drivers. I've got six of them myself I haven't gotten around to fixing.

You also may need a chipset driver to see the USB devices. My USB drives worked fine without one, but every chipset is different - otherwise there wouldn't be a need for such drivers.