usb devices uninstall on restart

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

I've upgraded a packard bell athlon 2000 system to XP. everything is fine
except all the USB devices printer, scanner, modem are missing on restart.
I've tried a packard patch for such problems that didn't appear to do
anything. Setting universal plug and play in admin/ services to auto gives
intermittent success. It works around half the time or more. All hardware
appears to be installed in device manager ok. I've applied all updates on
PBell site. Is there anything else I can try that might work. Anyone had a
similar problem?