How to activate USB ports

I just got a new laptop and I'm trying to load the songs from my ipod to itunes. That's not the problem I'm having though. I can't get the USB ports to recognize my ipod. I Googled it to find answers and I saw that my USB ports could be turned off in order to save power. So I followed googles instructions to do control panel > hardware > device manager > universal serial bus controllers and sure enough they were checked "allow this computer to turn off this device to save power"

So I unchecked them clicked ok and restarted my computer. But after restarting it still wouldn't recognize my ipod. When I checked again the boxes to disable the USB ports were checked again!

Does anyone know how I can get my computer to allow me to activate the usb ports?

Update:

I just tried plugging in my external hard drive into the same port I was using for my ipod and the computer recognized it.
Still won't recognize the ipod though. Any ideas?