Windows won't recognize my iPod - USB device not recognized

Question

This is really frustrating. So I got a 4gb iPod nano on Saturday, took it home, set it up and everything was going just fine, no worry's. About 4 hours later I went to adjust my songs and it would not come up in iTunes. A little pop-up box said that the "USB device not recognized - one of the USB devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned and windows does not recognize it." After owning my iPod for less than an afternoon, I now have an ipod that I can do nothing to including change the music, charge it, etc. It works normally otherwise, it just won't connect to my computer. I then plugged in my older 256mb usb stick, and the same message, it too does not get recognized by windows. So I then tried a brand new 1gb usb stick that I had and the same result, not recognized by windows. I updated my itunes to the latest one after purchasing my ipod (version 7.4.3.1) and have looked up everything that I can and tried everything I saw to try, but nothing, absolutely nothing, worked. However my usb mouse, usb joystick, and usb printer all still work, but my moniter that has four usb outlets on it causes the same message, if I plug in the cable that connects one usb on my computer to the four on my moniter, windows can not recognize it. When I look in my device manager at the "unknown device" under the usb controller list it says that there is not driver for it, however I know that the drivers are either on my computer or built into windows. Any help? Anybody have an idea about what to do? Is it something in my windows registry has changed because of the new itunes, etc.?

Answer 1

Now that I've had some sleep, I realise I didn't really provide information that may lead to some specific help. Here goes - when I first plugged in the ipod nano (8gb), It displayed the screen it was supposed to - I could see the lightning bolt through the battery icon and knew it was charging. The icon for the ipod also appeared in the left-hand listing in itunes (in the section that existed under Library, before the sections Store and Playlists). This section now does not appear (I can't remember the title of this section, but it might have been 'devices'). In fact, I'm pretty sure this problem started when I clicked on this icon - nothing happened and it disappeared - so did the display on the ipod, which is not just the apple. This means itunes has only Library, Store and Playlist in the left-hand colunm. While I accept that computers do not work on normal logic, this seems to me to indicate that the drivers are fine, the system is fine, my laptop is fine - its the ipod or the usb cord. This morning as I tried again, this time my laptop gave me the option to 'click on the balloon to solve the problem' - let me quote: "One of the USB devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned, and Windows does not recognise it. Try reconnecting the device. If Windows still does not recognise it, replace the device". Come on folks - one of you will surely know how to fix this (short of me taking the ipod back to the store to get my money back).