I am anything but a computer whizz but have usually managed to sort things out myself with a little internet search, but I'm completely stumped on this one.

I have a Packard Bell I Media 5091.
Windows XP Home Edition,
Version 2002, Service Pack 3 (which was only updated to today and I've been having probs since the beginning of May)
If you want anymore details your going to have to tell me how to find them!

Anyway, I've been trying to connect various hardware to my PC via USB but it simply won't connect any of the new devices I have tried,
e.g: Samsung G600, with original software, both from disk and updated from the website,
AFT Pro-Gear Solo card reader which isn't supposed to need drivers according to the many review sites I've looked at,
A brand new USB flash drive.

Windows picks up the new device and goes searching for the drivers but doesn't find anything, and if I try to direct the search to a specific location for the software, it tells me that path is invalid.

But I can still plug in and connect my old Sony Ericsson and other flash drive to the PC using the USB ports. And my mouse and keyboard are still working (most of the time, on occassion the mouse will suddenly stop responding for no apparent reason.

I've been into device manager, looking for conflicts, which there are none indicated for the USB ports, however, whenever I plug in any of the aforementioned new devices, "Other Devices" with the name of the device is flagged with a conflict.

I've done all the windows updates, I've checked that the power to the usb ports is as it should be, I've checked the registry and I need to know what to do now.

Help would be so appreciated

With the Samsung device, do you know precisely where the drivers installed to? If so, connect it, and in Device Manager, when it shows in 'Other devices', uninstall it and then go into ADD Hardware and install it from there - DO NOT let Windows look for drivers, direct it to the appropriate inf location (your install folder or wherever).