Unable To Auto Install / Reinstall Generic Device Drivers

I have a Sony RS-220 desktop w/ XP home w/ SP2 & all updates since that's unable to auto install generic device drivers. I discovered this when I tried plugging in a couple different USB flash drives & it would just stop at the found new hardware wizard. Running the wizard w/ "install the software automatically" & also enabling "also search windows updates" returns unable to find device driver. The USB flash drive was the only bang in device manager. I uninstalled the usb controllers, rebooted and amazingly the controllers wouldn't auto reinstall. Suspecting the behavior extended to more then just USBs/the chipset I uninstalled some unneeded devices (56k modem & 1394) & they also wouldn't auto reinstall.

I went to the sony website & strangely Sony doesn't list the chipset available for download w/ the other drivers I downloaded the chipset direct from intel & installed it but that didn't work either. I've tried many other things to no avail. Malware scans (spybot, AVG AV, rootkitrevealer)...all came up clean. I've tried a new admin user profile, cCleaner registry cleanup, resetting registry permissions w/ subinACL, setting related windows services to automatic, checkdisk /r. Another thing I thought about doing was uninstalling the PCI controller, but I think I recall that can get ugly. Ultimately the only thing that allowed me to get my usb controllers, usb hubs, modem, 1394, & usb drive working was to "install from a list or specific location" & "include this location in the search" C:WINDOWSinf. Does anybody have any idea how I can restore the functionality of generic drivers auto installing & not having to point to an INF directory? Any insight is greatly appreciated.