HELP! Win7 will not allow me to attach USB storage devices

[speedy1971]

Glad you got it working.

If you have image backups, did you try restoring one of them?

Actually a Repair Install isn't like a clean install, you will not have to re-install any programs, drivers or lose any personal data. It will not be lost or affected.

Information:
This will show you how to do a repair upgrade install to fix your currently installed Windows 7 and preserve your user accounts, data, programs, and system drivers.

Note:
Do a Repair installation if:
A System Restore did not help fix your Windows 7.
There is no other easier option left that can fix your Windows 7.
You DO NOT want to do a Clean reinstall of Windows 7.
You DO want to preserve your user accounts, data, programs, and system drivers.

How to Do a Repair Install to Fix Windows 7 (< click here) just have a quick look at this very informative tutorial, it will explain everything. It's not a re-install, it saves everything you have on your OS partition/hard drive and only re-writes some of the OS.

I'm familiar with repair installs and the difference between them and a nuke-and-reinstall. Their runtime is linear in the number of "application settings" that it has to migrate (e.g the number of apps you have to install). It is identical to upgrading Vista to 7 in that regard. Slow.

The trouble with full image restores is you are probably restoring the configuration that led you to whatever problem you had in the first place, so it's possible it will just recur. In the long run, if you can be surgical in your approach, I think that's better.

SS