USB Troubles

Ipod Shuffle 2nd gen is not recognized by windows and it says a malfunction occurs when I plug it in, but only yesterday I had the thing plugged in and it was fine, but I can't charge my ipod or change out songs.The ipod itself functions properly and itunes is up to date so I can only think it's an issue with my USB ports. I've got the latest chipset, Dell,Microsoft, and Itunes support offer squat on this so i'm trying here. I've had this issue with the USB ports in the past but never with my ipod, though since it happened with everything else I suppose it had to happen to my ipod some time. Last time the problem was fixed by reinstalling the drivers to get my keyboard and mouse to be recognized,but that also required an entire reinstall of the OS and I've only just recovered alot of the music I lost and I don't want to go through that again.
using Windows XP home edition Service pack 3
and it's a basic Demension E310 Pentium 4 etc.

Get back to me whenever you can.