USB stop seeing old dvd drive, jump drive

[paulpingpong]

My Toshiba laptop cannot see the USB devices I used before, after I tried and uninstalled the Nero 7 suite with an LG external DVD writer.  Now my jump drive(Sandisk Micro Cruzer 2G), and my old Norwood Micro external DVD burner also is not recognized.  Something about drivers that I couldn't resolve. Would appreciate any help.

[patio]

What flavor of Windows might this be ? ?

[paulpingpong]

Win XP.

[patio]

Travel to Device Manager...
Right clik every instance of USB roots and hubs and select remove/uninstall...
You will get a warning message ...ignore it.
Unplug all USB devices not needed to boot
Power down and re-boot.

[paulpingpong]

Tried that.  Didn't work.  Anybody with any idea to get the USB seeing external DVD burner, flash drive, and SD card reader again.  The SD card reader does show up as a working device, but I can't write to or see the files on it.  The only USB device still working is my mouse ( Targus on Toshiba laptop A100).  My next step would be the big restore.  I restored it to a point about a month ago to no avail.
Paul

[paulpingpong]

Without any success in all attempts to revive the non-functioning USB ports, I went for the bing restore. No luck, still cannot see flash drive, external hard drive etc. So It does not seem to be a software or driver issue. Look like a hardware problem. Is it possible and cost effective to sent to the repair shop? It's a basement level 2-year old Toshiba A100, Celeron M 1.5, 256 RAM, 60G hard drive. Paid $600. Latest ads have $400 laptops with way better specs. Without USB ports I can't do most of my usual stuff. Opinions!

[patio]

I'd make some calls...i had USB ports replaced on 2 devices recently...a Guitar Port setup and a desktop MBoard.
Both times he charged me $35.00 but it will be a different story with a laptop. May get as high as $100 or so...