Front usbs not working(suddenly)

Question

have unistalled them from device manger and tried to refind them but did not work,if i plug either my memory stick or card readers or ipod which did work till 2weeks ago it just says usb not reconised and no driver installed but they did all work to this point ..i presume the comp can reconise it because it comes up with the usb not reconised warning when installed but cant locate in "my computer" as h drive or g drive etc wireless mouse etc works but nothing in the 2 front usb ports..tried to find usb in the set up bios menu but got scared and backed out of it.im running xp pro and sp2 but other than that im a newby to all this side of it all .please help son driving me crazy wanting to update i pod