Vista - vista usb drivers messed up

I've had Vista Ult x64 edition up for months with no problems.

Recently installed Virtualbox and a few of the windows updates, rebooted my PC.

And now it finds (6) new devices for which it cannot find a driver.

When its done with this ... it sees (3) USB Root Hubs, (3) keyboards ... and neither of the (2) USB mice I have plugged in.

I tried installing my nForce drivers again ... as well as the driver for my death adder mouse. They made no difference.

It still behaves the same way. Finds 6 new devices, none of which it can locate drivers for ... although ALL of these devices were there when the system was built.

Also tried all of the "USB rollup" patches (Windows6.0-KB941600-x64.msu) ... but after reading the file windows says it does not apply to my system.

Out of desperation, rebooted from DvD and tried to repair windows auto. ... which failed after 30 minutes saying it couldn't find/repair the problem.

IS THERE ANY HOPE ??
or do I just give up, wipe the disk and re-install from scratch??

I heard rumor that there is a prefetch / driver store somewhere in vista that can be corrupted and need manual repairing ... does that apply and how to fix it ??

I've opened an issue with Microsoft ... but not holding my breath;

https://support.microsoft.com/oas/de...=15&gprid=6527