At first, my kids brought it to my attention that their camera's wouldnt download their pics...via WinXP USB...then, upon booting into my linux OS I realized that my usb scanner wasnt being recognized by 10.2.

This machine is dual-boot...WinXP and OpenSuSE 10.2...
I've checked the BIOS settings...see below:
USB BIOS Settings:
AGP Aperture size = 64MB
USB Controller = enabled
USB Legacy Device Support = disabled
DRAM CAS Latency = Auto

...the above settings are all I could find in my BIOS regarding USB on my system.
I have four usb ports on the back of the computer "and" two in front...I find it hard to believe all 6 of them failed at once...I havent lifted the cover to inspect the actual connections but could someone tell me what else might be the problem?

If both OS's fail to find the usb devices and the BIOS is set correctly could it be possible that the motherboard connections to USB have failed?
Thoughts and suggestions appreciated....thanks for your reply.

if you have a 'live' cd of your distro try to see if that works in live mode, just to check if you have a hardware problem. and why do you have disabled legacy support for usb? it is good for when you have devices that still support old usb standard, enabling this will certainly not hurt; i have it enabled on all my 5 systems and they work fine.

will try your live cd suggestion....the legacy device setting has been that way since day one and I dont believe its had any impact...but I will enable it and let you know...thanks again