USB device not recognized

This problem just started when I plugged in my IPOD and got the warning

"USB devise not recognized. One of the usB divices attached to the computer has malfunctioned, and windows does not recognize it ".

Got the same message when I tried plugging in a photo card reader (which I used two hours earlier with no problems) and a thumbdrive. All worked fine on my laptop.
It appears thats some of the other USB ports and not recognizing hardware also. My keyboard , mouse, and scanner work fine but my printer port is not along with the ports on the front of the desktop.

Tried doing a system restore to a known good date and it will not let me do a sytem restore to any date that I select. Did a check to make sure the system restore options were on and they were.
Ran Norton anti-virus and it did not report any viruses. I did not download anything that I can recall from the time the photocard reader worked and when I started getting the USB error message

Help

 

Thanks. Was able to do a restore but unfortuntley it didn't fix my USB problem so I'm back to the frustration level again. Any suggestion on how to get those ports up and running again would be greatly appreciated
1. Both USB ports in the front are not working. They were earlier in the day because i used the photocard reader to download some photos off of my digital camera
2. USB port in the back which has my printer on it also does not work, but as with the card reader it did earlier when I printed out something
3. The problem first came to light later on in the day when the wife plugged in her IPOD and got the devise not recognized message.
4. Confirmed the card reader and IPOd were Ok by hooking them up to my laptop
5. The following devices are working scanner, mouse, keyboard, usb headset, wireless game controller adapter