Checking your USB Driver Revision levels
To check your USB driver revision levels, you will need to launch the Device Manger. I've found the quickest way to do this is to hold down on the Windows logo key and press the Pause/Break key in the upper right hand corner of the keyboard. This launches the Systems Properties menu. Then select Hardware-> Device Manager. You can also get to the Device Manager by right clicking on My Computer, Properties to launch the Systems Properties menu. Then select the '+' sign in front of the Universal Serial Bus Controller(s). The USB devices should open and you may see a lot of things under it like the image below:
Look for any device(s) called the 'Enhanced Host Controller' These are the High speed (480 Mbps) drivers for the USB 2.0 hardware on the computer. Please note that the lower speed drivers are called Universal or Open Host Controllers, and are generally shared between a pair of USB ports. They are for the Full speed (12 Mbps) and Low speed (1.5 Mbps) speed devices. The image shown above has three separate High Speed USB controllers, the Intel 82801DB chipset on the motherboard, a card based on the Via VT6202 USB controller and another based on the ALi M5273 USB controller.
If you right click on any of the Enhanced Host Controllers and select its Properties, and the select Driver-> Driver Details, you will get an information box like the ones below which will give you the revision of the USB device driver. The important driver is the usbehci.sys driver.
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Please note the driver file versions for the Intel and Via USB interfaces are 5.1.2600.1243. You drivers should be at this revision or greater. These are newer than the usbehci.sys drivers that come in SP1. You can find them by going to the Microsoft KnowledgeBase Article 822603. The newest drivers have a version of 5.1.2600.2180 and are part of SP2.
If the hardware is using a 'Standard' Enhanced driver, try to get it to use the one that is specific to the manufacturer, i.e., Intel, NEC, Via, or SIS. The 'Standard Enhanced' driver doesn't seem to work with very well. Here are some instructions on how to force a driver if it doesn't seem to be finding the correct one.
The ALi will accept the Standard Enhanced Microsoft drivers, but they don't work with the ALi based-cards and the HP DVD Movie Writer. So far, we have not been successful at getting any ALi-based cards to work reliably with the HP DVD Movie Writer. If you have a card with an ALi chipset, it's recommended that you replace it with one that has an NEC chipset. Most vendors don't advertise which chipset they have, but here is a website that sells NEC-based USB 2.0 cards exclusively.