wont recognize USB devices

[Austin]

I am having trouble using USB devices with XP Pro. The
strange thing is that I was able to use them before, but I
had to reinstall XP and now I have a problem. In SiSoft
Sandra it shows that the USB ports are functional and the
drivers installed but devices are not recognized at all.
At first in the device manager it showed USB
controllers as an unknown device towards the middle of the
list, and at the bottom showed two Standard OpenHCD USB
Host Controllers and two USB Root Hubs as having drivers
installed, working, and enabled, but still no device
detected (when there was one plugged in, also I have tried
with 3 different working devices). With the device in I
told the control panel to search for new hardware. It
said it successfully installed new hardware and now the
device manager is like this:
-No more unknown devices
-Universal PCI to USB Adapter Controllers
General tab: no driver installed
Driver tab:
driver provider: microsoft
driver date: 6/1/01
driver version: 5.1.2600.0
driver signer: not digitally signed
-Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller
-Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller
-USB Root Hub
-USB Root Hub
(the last four devices' driver tabs show driver date as
7/1/01, version as 5.1.2600.0, and signer as Microsoft
Windows XP Publisher)
I have tried reinstalling motherboard (Epox 8RDA+
w/ nforce2 chip and nvidia drivers) drivers, I have tried
installing Windows XP SP1a, and I have tried removing and
letting XP reinstall the USB controllers several times all
with no success and I am at a complete loss of what to
do. I have tried connecting a keychain USB 128MB hardrive
and a digital 8track home recording/mixing machine which
both normally show as removable storage devices in My
Computer and a digital camera, all with no luck.
Please help me.
Thank you in advance

 

[Austin]

It's very disheartening that no one has responde to my
post. Thats not a good sign.

 

[Bee]

It's very disheartening that no one has responde to my
post. Thats not a good sign.

This point has been laboured ad nauseam before, but as you have not alluded
to it, I may hazard a guess. You plugged in the peripherals then installed
the drivers. The correct procedure is the other way round: software
precedes hardware.

I noted you wrote that the device worked before the removal of the driver.
Could it be that the procedure was somehow followed correctly way back then?