Vista - USB hardware not recognised warnings - when theres no USB devices

I have been using Vista for almost 8 months now and have never had any
problems until I turned on my PC earlier this evening and noticed that none
of the USB ports worked at all. Windows keeps showing me the "USB device not
recognised" warning dialogue box and is randomly playing the sounds it does
when you plug in and un-plug a USB device. Boggled, I have unplugged ALL my
USB devices, but the warnings still kept popping up and the sounds are still
being played like windows thinks something is in one of the ports. I am so
confused and have no idea what to do. The only thing that I can think my have
caused it is that was using 'ready boost' on a 2GB flash drive and
(forgetting I was using the flash drive for ready boost) removed it without
ejecting it. Is this the cause of my problem? Can anyone shed some light on
this? Many thanks.

try booting in safe mode the uninstall all usb ports
then reboot see if that helps
if you cant uninstall them then disable them all then enable again

Check out this post to see if this is your problem:

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/com...1-3642721fd1c6

"Ben G" wrote:

Possible FIX ! Worked for me.
I came home from work and rebooted my PC to install a new DVD-ROM. When I booted up everything looked good, till I arrived at the Vista log in screen. No mouse or keyboard! (both USB) WTF. So I rebooted, no luck! I disconnected the DVD-ROM and still no dice. I first thought it was my BIOS. I had control while in BIOS so... I flipped my mouse and rebooted. While booting, I noticed that my opitcal mouse light cut off as soon as windows started to load. DING ! correct OS. I booted to my Vista DVD and repaired my OS.