Windows 7 32 won't boot with USB devices plugged in

My Windows 7 HTPC (see my profile, it's an Ion with an Atom 330) has been running fine for about a week now and tonight I went in to watch a movie and it was stuck at the "Starting Windows" screen, without the logo showing. After toying with it a bit and trying to boot in to repair mode (which also wouldn't boot), I unplugged my keyboard and MCE IR receiver and it booted. I tried plugging them in one at a time and it won't boot with either in.

I don't know if an automatic update was installed or anything, but I haven't changed anything since it was working fine last night. I did toy with the BIOS a bit (can't remember when exactly) but I took another look and haven't found anything that seems like it could cause this. Anyone else had an issue?

I also have a second question -- it keeps turning off, or hibernating or something. I turned off "Deep sleep" in the BIOS and have it set to never hibernate in Windows. Whatever it's doing, the remote won't wake it. What do I need to do so I won't have to get up and push the power button?

For USB, check BIOS boot order.

CD/DVD= first
HD =
USB drive

Only USB devices connected are my keyboard, mouse and IR receiver. The only drive actually connected is the internal hard drive. The boot order lists hard drive first, USB second. It's going to the correct boot drive, since Windows is trying to start, but something about these devices is making it stop.

This is a tiny Ion based HTPC without a CD/DVD drive. The BIOS doesn't even list it as an option.

Is there a BIOS update for the board. I've seen this happen on some older laptops, but a BIOS update always solved the issue.

I have a card reader that causes this sometimes. Unplugging the card reader when it is stuck then makes windows continue to boot up entirely. It's sporadic though

It may be a driver issue. The only thing I can think of is to either update the usb driver from the manufacturer or if you are using that one, uninstall it and try getting windows to load the default W7 one. Completely uninstalling a driver though means removing the driver INI from the windows driver cache so it won't instantly reinstall it again on reboot. If the USB driver has an ununstall entry in remove programs it might work. Otherwise it can take some hand work to do manually.

My fix was to buy a different brand of card reader, but yours seems more serious

Sigh. Oh Windows, our relationship is right back where we left it 2 years ago. I'll play with the USB drivers but I have a feeling I'm not going to have an HTPC for long. Thanks for the input, guys.