Vista - Memory Stick

I had to reformat my machine and reinstalled Vista and service Pack 1. My
memory sticks are not recognized. Every time I insert one into a USB port it
is identified as new hardware and tries to install drivers which obviously
are not available. I am then referred to download KB 940199.
When I do that and attempt to install it I get the message 'this update does
not apply to your computer' or something like that.
How am I ever going to get my USB speaks to work again?

I have another problem. Every time I reboot my computer, it finds 'new
hardware' and wants to install drivers which it cannot find. However, when I
look in device manager there are no unknown devices and everything appears to
be perfectly normal. How can I get Vista to stop looking for hardware that
is not there. My BIOS is perfectly up-to-date.