Where exactly was the USB driver listed in Device Manager? What are the USB devices connected to your computer?

After the reboot disconnect the USB mouse from its port and connect that to all the available USB ports on the computer tower (both front and back) check if it is working fine with all the ports.

Also check all the slots in the media card reader also check if it has any USB port. The other way to isolate the issue will be to disconnect the memory card reader cable from the mother board and reboot the computer and see if you still get the USB driver error.

USB drivers are controlled by the chipset drivers, if this issue is with the drivers then you may try reinstalling the chipset drivers.

newagepirate, if you suspect a specific problem, it is only useful to comment if you also suggest a possible solution. I can always put in a post like "This is bad" - but that does not help and I would consider it as Spam.

Quote: "i ended up using my own person vista install cd". Was that a system CD you had purchased from MS or where did you get it from? To me it sounded like an MS Vista because it did not install any recovery partition.

That is, of course, the ultimate. Because you are right, Dell, HP and the others seem to apply quite some changes to the system that are not always for the better. But having a seperately purchased system disk is a luxury not everybody can afford.