Ipod(s) are not syncing with itunes all of a sudden

Question

WARNING, this is going to be very long-winded.  So I've exhausted every avenue I can think of myself, so I figured I'd try just asking on the forum here and hopefully someone can suggest a solution.  First, the specs of the equipment/software involved:
Windows 7 64 bit O.S. on my pc
Itunes 10.3.1.55
Ipod touch 4thGen 64GB
Ipod Nano 4thGen 8GB
So a couple days ago, I tried syncing my ipod touch to my pc, and it wasn't recognized by itunes, it wasn't even recognized by Windows as an ipod.  It doesn't even charge the ipod or light up the screen.  All that happens when I plug it into the sync cable is that after about 10-15 seconds I get a windows error saying "USB device not recognized"  Under windows device manager, in the USB devices section, when the ipod(s) are connected it shows an unknown device connected to the port, but when I right click and look at the details for the unknown device, it gives no indication whatsoever that it is an apple device, doesn't say anything about AppleMobileDevice, or anything like that, just everything about it is unknown as far as windows is concerned.  The catch is, my ipod Nano is getting the exact same result, so if it's a hardware issure with the ipod itself, it struck both my ipods at the exact same time.  So I went to work investigating and troubleshooting.  After reading through the troubleshooting guides on apples website, some exhaustive google searches, consulting with a few people I know who work in I.T. troubleshooting, and reading through this forum for several hours looking for related issues, here is what I've tried:
1. My pc has 6 usb ports, I've tried using both cables (I have the syncing cables that came with each Ipod) with each Ipod in each USB port.
2. I've tried resetting both Ipods
3. I've uninstalled all apple software from my pc, rebooted, reinstalled.
4. I repeated step 3 but tried installing an older version of itunes (one that I know worked).
5.  I tried every step I could find suggested by Itunes on the apple support website:  Tried manually uninstalling/reinstalling the driver to the usb device, tried uninstalling the device driver while it was connected and rebooted (leaving it connected) hoping that windows would automatically install the right driver at startup.
6.  Suspecting it may have been virus related, I've run exhaustive searches for malware/viruses with several different antivirus/antimalware/antirootkit programs using them in and out of windows safemode.
7.  I did a windows system restore to a restore point back over a week ago, well before I started having issues.
8.  I emailed apple support and explained the problem in detail, the sent me a link to the "applecare express service".  That was extremely helpful...
9.  I took my ipod touch, and both my syncing cables over to a friends house and did the following:  Tried syncing it with his pc, he has the same exact version of windows and itunes as me, and it worked fine.  It synced immediately and recognized the device without any problem whatsoever.  While I had it synced to his pc, I master reset it back to factory settings, took it home and tried syncing it to my pc again to no avail. 
10.  I tried very politey asking it to please sync with my pc.
11.  I plugged it into my stereo which has a built in ipod dock, and it works fine with that device, charges, plays music off the ipod.
I'm willing to consider buying one of the "pay-per-incident" help feature service things from Apple Express lane, if I thought it would help at all. 
So, to anyone who was patient enough to read through all of that, any suggestions as to what the problem might be?  I'm still assuming at this point that it has to be something software related, I just have no idea what, and can't think of a single thing that changed on my pc from when I synced it on tuesday morning, to when I tried to sync it on wednesday morning and this all started. 

Answer 1

FIXED!
Follow up for anyone who reads this post and has encountered the same/roughly the same type of error.  To recap basically what happened was one day Itunes on my pc with win7 64bit was working fine and syncing up with both my ipods (ipod touch and ipod nano) and the next day it wasn't working at all.  What happened was when I tried to sync either device with my pc, not only did the proper drivers not install/function, but they wouldn't even charge.  Well I spent some long hours trying to figure what was going on, wound up going so far as to format my hard drive (i had my data backed up first!) and do a clean install of windows 7, and even that still didn't fix it.  In my frustration I decided to try to plug in some other USB devices I had lying around but hadn't used in awhile, (microsoft HD webcam, and a flash memory storage drive) and discovered I got the same exact error/symptoms with those devices, i.e. drivers failed to install in Win7.  So now I realized that whatever was going on was beyond just itunes/ipods, and something was wrong on a systematic level.  Basically, certain USB devices were functioning perfectly fine (mouse, keyboard, x360 controller) while others (ipods, webcam, flash drive) weren't functioning at all. 
So what was the solution?  Someone suggested trying adding a stand alone USB add on card.  For those that don't know, it's a card you can plug into an available slot in your motherboard and it adds USB ports to a pc that otherwise doesn't have any, or adds extra ports to your current setup.  I picked up a card at best buy for $20 that plugged into an available PCI slot, gave me two new available USB ports. (set-up is VERY easy for these cards, there is no set-up really, you just plug the card in and turn the pc back on)
VOILA!, after installing the new USB card, I opened Itunes, plugged in my ipod touch, and it synced up right away, I was so relieved.  I still have no idea what caused the USB device/driver issues, or why adding the extra card worked, but it was a cheap and easy solution, and hopefully if anyone else encounters a similar "unsolveable" problem, this might help them.