"murph399" <murph399@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:6C7E2594-1A73-45BB-A88E-56D46DD4157E@microsoft.com...
>
>
> tried restoring back a couple of times, disabled usb controllers and
> rebooted, all to no avail. even took the drastic step of system recovery.
> still the same. took webcam and memory sticks to a mates and tested on his
> comp, worked fine there. totally out of ideas now

Probably the only thing left is to check that USB hasn't become disabled in
the BIOS. If this is OK then it sounds like a hardware fault. You could
add a USB controller card if you have a spare PCI slot.