Windows won't recognize my iPod - USB device not recognized

This is really frustrating. So I got a 4gb iPod nano on Saturday, took it home, set it up and everything was going just fine, no worry's. About 4 hours later I went to adjust my songs and it would not come up in iTunes. A little pop-up box said that the "USB device not recognized - one of the USB devices attached to this computer has malfunctioned and windows does not recognize it." After owning my iPod for less than an afternoon, I now have an ipod that I can do nothing to including change the music, charge it, etc. It works normally otherwise, it just won't connect to my computer. I then plugged in my older 256mb usb stick, and the same message, it too does not get recognized by windows. So I then tried a brand new 1gb usb stick that I had and the same result, not recognized by windows. I updated my itunes to the latest one after purchasing my ipod (version 7.4.3.1) and have looked up everything that I can and tried everything I saw to try, but nothing, absolutely nothing, worked. However my usb mouse, usb joystick, and usb printer all still work, but my moniter that has four usb outlets on it causes the same message, if I plug in the cable that connects one usb on my computer to the four on my moniter, windows can not recognize it. When I look in my device manager at the "unknown device" under the usb controller list it says that there is not driver for it, however I know that the drivers are either on my computer or built into windows. Any help? Anybody have an idea about what to do? Is it something in my windows registry has changed because of the new itunes, etc.?