I'm running Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 3, Intel, Pentium 4 CPU 2.80GHz, 1.98GB of RAM and currently my only working usb devices are my keyboard and mouse.

I recently had a problem where whenever I opened any program, explorer would crash. I decided to try a suggestion from a Google link that said to boot from the windows installation disk,and choose the repair option but because I my installation disk (that has that option) is corrupted and couldn't find a lot of it's necessary files, I had to swap around with other disks, and the repair failed but wouldn't load windows again. So I used a working disk to completely re-install XP (without formatting the partion).
Everything was working ok, until two days ago when I wanted to put some files on my flash drive. I plugged it in and windows said it found new hardware, then brought up an installation window. I told it to search for the files automatically, it began a search, but then it stopped and said that it could not find the necessary software required. I was thinking maybe I just needed to replug it or plug something else in, but both my flash drive and mp3 player did the same thing.

I searched Google, but the only answer I kept seeing that works is find the drivers from a previous installation or reinstall windows. I don't have any old drivers and shortly before I tried using my usb devices, I installed some new softwares and because I didn't format my disk, my current windows directory was "WINDOWS.0", so I decided to try to re-install Windows again. I restarted my pc and booted into the Linux OS "Ubuntu". I plugged my flash drive into my pc, and then I copied the files I wanted onto my flash drive while in Ubuntu (which clearly means my pc can read them, and they're not damaged), then I removed all my windows' files, so that I could re-install without any naming problems.

Last Night, I finished installing Windows XP Service Pack 3, then I plugged up my flash drive, and the same problem occurred, so re-installing did not help me one bit. I installed all the automatic updates, and I'm trying to re-install my audio drivers right now, but Windows still won't find any drivers for my usb devices, I need help, because it'd be really inconvenient to have to restart my pc to go to another os every time I want to use my flash drive  .


Edit: Last night I went through the process of re-installing Windows with the same working disc AGAIN, and now it seems to be working. The only thing I did different this time was I had my flash drive in, now usbs will install.