Sorry this is not a more helpful post, but I want to add my experiences and
seek a solution to the same problem. I run Vista Home Premium which was was
built new with Vista - i.e. no upgrade. I have tried four USB HDD drives,
several memory sticks, two cameras and most recently an LCD photo frame. In
all cases except one of the HDDs, one of the cameras and one stick, I get the
error that no driver can be found and consult the manufacturer's web site.
In each case the product is either sufficiently generic that there is no
obvious web site, or if there is, no Vista driver is available. Often
drivers exist for Win 98, but I too believed that from ME onwards, most if
not all USB storage devices were plug and play. That has certainly been my
experience with various machines running ME / 2000 / XP. I upgraded the PC
and went to Vista because so much software (e.g. camera and photo frame) was
incompatible with ME. Now I find I still cannot use the damned things
because Vista does not like USB devices.
Since some storage devices are recognised, and I can successfully use the
USB ports for printers / mice / bluetooth etc, I don't believe there is a
hardware issue
Cheers JB