All USB sockets stopped working except for mouse and KB

have any body change your computer/user policy?
they could disable all your USB storage devices trought those options

@Ivan, thank you--no one has changed any policy (I would never have thought of that solution).

@Carlos, thank you, I'm to go get that now.

Wow usbdview is going to take some learning. One thing I immediately noticed is that the external USB HDD I have plugged into a motherboard socket is identified and not disabled, but does not have a drive letter (which I already knew from Device Manager). Likewise a USB flash drive plugged into the MB is identified and doesn't have a drive letter (again, as shown by Device Manager).

So Windows Device Manager sees and correctly identifies USB devices but does not assign them drive letters (which I already knew). I don't know why or how to fix that.

When I plug a USB device in, Windows opens a window: "Device driver software not successfully installed." "USB mass storage device" and a green check mark, and below that it says the correct description of the device with a red X.

Have you tried with one single PCIe to USB card, and combinations of those, I mean:

1.- Take the 3 off,
2.- plug card one and power on, do tests, look at drivers, usbdeview, etc
3.- power off, swap card one for card two, and repeat steps from point 2.
4.- power off, swap card two for card three, adn repeat steps from point 2.

Has any of the above worked OK??

This test will discriminate any damaged card (if any), if the results are bad and the same with the 3 cards, it's gotta be a problem with drivers or a incompatibility with other hardware (the other hardware that you installed? -in that case remove the newest hardware and try again-).

Thank you Carlos. I neglected to mention that I have no PCIE to USB card plugged in, I am using only the motherboard USB ports. If they worked, then I would do as you say and start trying to test the functionality of the PCIe cards.

Next I propose to use my laptop to create a bootable Linux USB drive and make sure the BIOS boots from a USB drive before the system (C) drive--then see if the PC will boot from the Linux USB drive.

Yep,

Good test, as that way, you will rule out drivers and OS problems.

If still don't work, then it will be hardware.

>>  So Windows Device Manager sees and correctly identifies USB devices but does not assign them drive letters (which I already knew). I don't know why or how to fix that.   <<

i open disk manager, and right click on the disk or partition, then select "change drive letter and path"

or i try the automount  way :
open an elevated command prompt, then type in diskpart
now type automount enable

you can also give a fixed drive letter :  http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html

Thank you. No USB device is visible in Disk Manager, only in Device Manager.

When I plug a USB flash drive into a port, its light blinks: so far, 7 different patterns, trying each pattern four times. Trying different USB flash drives, thus far only one does that--it has an executable that is supposed to run when the drive is plugged in.

the wdc drive in error is a disk drive - it has errors loading
you also have an error in the AMDA00 interface - best fix that first
i believe it to be an ASus driver of the AI suite, you can uninstall that for testing - if it is an ASUS board
there are several problems like this on the net

FYI since it seems unrelated, my Event Viewer has a zillion of these, and I am running MalwareBytes:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vista-performance/what-is-causing-the-error-event-the-bcm42rly/d6997eb9-7258-4231-86b5-4facdf2fb228?auth=1

This is an interesting Event Viewer entry:
Code Integrity determined that the page hashes of an image file are not valid. The file could be improperly signed without page hashes or corrupt due to unauthorized modification. The invalid hashes could indicate a potential disk device error.

File Name:      \Device\HarddiskVolume7\Windows\System32\sxs.dll

I don't know how to relate volume numbers to drives. But perhaps it refers to the USB external HDD that isn't functioning.

Have you tried plugging that HD in another PC to see if it works?

BTW that BCM42RLY that generates zillions of EV entries is the Broadcom driver for my Asus wi-fi radio. I am using wi-fi to connect to my router without problems. I note that web comments about this error seem to refer to Win8 but I am running Win7.

Yes, it works fine with my laptop. I have assumed that since no USB device works in my desktop, that is the problem, not the disk.

I am deferring the wi-fi driver issue until I get USB working again. The radio is a PCIe card.

This is when I shut down last night. The application referenced uploads files to a service that runs malware checks on them.

Windows detected your registry file is still in use by other applications or services. The file will be unloaded now. The applications or services that hold your registry file may not function properly afterwards.  The external USB HDD was connected (but doesn't work) so this is maybe one of the various side effects of the USB problem:

 DETAIL -
 10 user registry handles leaked from \Registry\User\S-1-5-21-338532247-1211432166-3175677937-1000:
Process 6536 (\Device\HarddiskVolume7\Program Files\SecureAge\Whitelist\SecureAPlusService.exe) has opened key \REGISTRY\USER\S-1-5-21-338532247-1211432166-3175677937-1000
Process 6536 (\Device\HarddiskVolume7\Program Files\SecureAge\Whitelist\SecureAPlusService.exe) has opened key \REGISTRY\USER\S-1-5-21-338532247-1211432166-3175677937-1000
Process 6536 (\Device\HarddiskVolume7\Program Files\SecureAge\Whitelist\SecureAPlusService.exe) has opened key \REGISTRY\USER\S-1-5-21-338532247-1211432166-3175677937-1000\Software\Microsoft\SystemCertificates\trust
Process 6536 (\Device\HarddiskVolume7\Program Files\SecureAge\Whitelist\SecureAPlusService.exe) has opened key \REGISTRY\USER\S-1-5-21-338532247-1211432166-3175677937-1000\Software\Microsoft\SystemCertificates\Root
Process 6536 (\Device\HarddiskVolume7\Program Files\SecureAge\Whitelist\SecureAPlusService.exe) has opened key \REGISTRY\USER\S-1-5-21-338532247-1211432166-3175677937-1000\Software\Microsoft\SystemCertificates\My
Process 6536 (\Device\HarddiskVolume7\Program Files\SecureAge\Whitelist\SecureAPlusService.exe) has opened key \REGISTRY\USER\S-1-5-21-338532247-1211432166-3175677937-1000\Software\Microsoft\SystemCertificates\My
Process 6536 (\Device\HarddiskVolume7\Program Files\SecureAge\Whitelist\SecureAPlusService.exe) has opened key \REGISTRY\USER\S-1-5-21-338532247-1211432166-3175677937-1000\Software\Microsoft\SystemCertificates\CA
Process 6536 (\Device\HarddiskVolume7\Program Files\SecureAge\Whitelist\SecureAPlusService.exe) has opened key \REGISTRY\USER\S-1-5-21-338532247-1211432166-3175677937-1000\Software\Policies\Microsoft\SystemCertificates
Process 6536 (\Device\HarddiskVolume7\Program Files\SecureAge\Whitelist\SecureAPlusService.exe) has opened key \REGISTRY\USER\S-1-5-21-338532247-1211432166-3175677937-1000\Software\Policies\Microsoft\SystemCertificates
Process 6536 (\Device\HarddiskVolume7\Program Files\SecureAge\Whitelist\SecureAPlusService.exe) has opened key \REGISTRY\USER\S-1-5-21-338532247-1211432166-3175677937-1000\Software\Microsoft\SystemCertificates\SmartCardRoot

@nobus--you suggested I start this new thread because the other one was getting too long. So it this one, I have to stop mentioning EV entries that clearly are not related to the USB problem--sorry.

There's a chance those drives are encrypted to a different pc/laptop

did you fix the AMD error yet, as i asked?

Uninstalling MalwareBytes eliminated the EV entries about BCM42RLY (Broadcom driver).
File Name:      \Device\HarddiskVolume7\Windows\System32\sxs.dll -- diskpart doesn't show a volume 7.

I successfully used the USB HDD on a third PC.

I am still reading web posts about the AMD00 interface for my Asus MB. Back ASAP, thank you.

The disk drive you saw with a yellow bang wdc wd20 eads-65r6b1is no longer shown in Device Manager;  it is a WD 2TB drive that is in the USB external HDD enclosure; that is not currently plugged in, it had stopped working when all the other USB devices stopped working. I wonder if the mysterious non-existent volume 7 was on that USB external HDD.

This is the Device Manager property for the AMDA00 interface:
Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged. (Code 19).  Shall I disable that, or uninstall it, or what? I am concerned about messing up AI Suite 3, this machine is custom-built and OC'd for me, I have no idea how I would restore what they did in the BIOS with the AI Suite. Thank you.

personallyt - i would uninstall the AI Suite 3; in case you need it, make a system restore point before uninstalling it
or install it from the Asus website - there can be a newer version too

I would just make a backup, and reinstall a fresh windows with latest drivers formatting the hard drive...

That will take you a couple of hours top, and with the certainty that if it still doesn't work after that, you can throw the PC away and get a new one.

And if it works, there you have it, fixed!

It looks like a lot of time, but this will save you time and headaches in the long run.

Hey it's a holiday week, I don't have to work, so I can spend time on getting this darn thing fixed. Thank you all for your kind help. Happy Holidays/Merry Christmas--I'll be back to wish you a Happy New Year, maybe with a working PC.

i certainly hope so for you !

We failed to solve the problem. I will be back after backing up and reinstalling Win7--the 100+ applications do not have to be installed (which past experience has been it taking about a week full time) for me to know if the OS reinstallation solved the problem. Thanks to everyone for their efforts.

Sorry to see that we couldn't get the problem solved.

You can save a couple of hours reinstalling software in a new PC using ninite (at least for apps like winrar, winzip, winscp, putty, browsers, etc), check it out:

https://ninite.com/