Mouse, ipod not being recognized

[CleanChucks]

Seems to have come out of nowhere. The only recent change to my pc is that I installed the new crysis game and had to update my video drivers, but that was a few days before my mouse/ipod problem. The ipod doesn't show up in itunes anymore, though it plays properly with my headphones and seems to be charging when plugged into my PC. The mouse cursor just sits in the centre of my screen and aside from it working for an amazing 10 seconds earlier today, has been completely useless.

Looking through the device manager (as was suggested by several links via google), I don't see anything relating to the mouse or the ipod, so I don't know how to fix it that way. I tried booting in safe mode (f8 at startup right?) and that didn't change anything either.

Help please!

[glc]

Try doing a system restore back to a date before the issue first occured.

[CleanChucks]

Tried that too, didn't work. I just rebooted my PC again after installing the laser mouse 6000 'software' from microsoft's site, the mouse worked briefly after starting up (15 secs), and now it's dead again.

I really need to get this working

[CleanChucks]

For those who have the same problem: after doing everything (device manager, bios settings, different mice, drivers for mouse and usb, reinstalling itunes, etc etc etc) to try and fix it, I eventually had to go out and buy a usb PCI card. 4 ports, only costed $10 canadian, and it fixed the problem immediately.