Q. My USB Ports on my laptop have suddenly stopped working! Every time I plug something in I get a "this device is not recognized" error. They are working fine just an hour ago. What happened?

A. It is likely that your USB drivers have become corrupted.  It doesn't necessarily mean that you havea virus or a serious problem with yoru laptop, sometimes it just happens. 

Luckily,  the fix is easy. You will need to delete your drivers and reinstall them. 

1. Click the "Start" button then find "Computer" on the menu panel, and right-click it.

2. Click "properties" in the menu that pops up.

3. Choose "Device Manager"

4. In the loist oif devices, find "Universal Serial Bus controllers" (probably the last one on the list) and expand the list. 

5. One by one, double-click the listed USB Port, and in the window that pops up, choose "drivers" then "uninstall". Do this for each driver listed until they are all gone. (don't be scared. The next part is easy and cool) 

6. Reboot. Windows will automatically detect and reinstall the USB drivers and your USB Ports should now work perfectly.