USB in Dimension 8250 - 'USB Device not Recognized'

I have just spent 3 solid (10hrs+) days with Dell 'technical support' trying to resolve a USB problem.

It included a complete hard drive re-format and installation amongst hours and hours of other suggested fixes. The technical support people even suggested that I didn't really have to use USB devices. Frankly it was the most appalling technical support I have EVER encountered. I asked them to ring back and they said they would but didn't, they suggested fixes which caused catastrophic failures, they completely failed to resolve the problem AT ALL - in short pathetic, and I will never go near them or buy another Dell again, but I digress.

After I gave up on the tech support advice and did my own investigating I found that one of the two USB ports on the front of the computer (where the little door lifts up) which I hadn't even noticed before, and never used, was not working.

I got back to tech support and told them this, and they eventually sent me a new port, which I fitted and this solved the problem.

So... it was a hardware problem all along. Couldn't they have tried remote access and checked this BEFORE I went through all the days of hassle and lost a lot of software, work and patience!!!

Anyway, rant over. Just to spread the word about this. The error message was a continual 'USB Device not Recognized' even when no USB devices were plugged in, and the cause was bad hardware, not software, drivers or Win XP.