[newbe]

I have 6 total USB ports built into my computer. Two in the front and four in the back. They have magically stopped working. I cannot connect to the net with it using my USB network adapter, it will not recognize my external HDD (though this laptop...

I have 6 total USB ports built into my computer. Two in the front and four in the back. They have magically stopped working. I cannot connect to the net with it using my USB network adapter, it will not recognize my external HDD (though this laptop does), it will not recognize my MP3 player. It will however recognize my XBOX360 controller I have been using forever and a day. This problem just happened within the past 48hrs of me posting this. At first I thought it might be a virus preventing my from using my USB ports, but I've been doing some research, and other people have had this problem (almost). I am running Windows XP SP3. I have checked the device manager and it says that everything is running correctly. When I unplug a USB device and plug it back in, a small usb icon appears next to the clock. I double click on it and brings up a window that says that there is an "unknown device" plugged in. I've tried reinstalling the drivers and nothing seems to help. The strangest thing about this whole problem is that they all didn't go bad at the same time. First it was the front two, then the others went bad. When the front two went bad, I was still able to connect to the net using my usb network adapter (which was plugged into the back). Now none of them work. I'm very frustrated because I cannot afford to get anything fixed. I'm quite poor, I only have net because it comes free with the apt complex I live in. Please help me. Thank you in advance.