Thank you, I'll make sure to try, and I'll report back here.
Before I try and remove all this, I want to report something here: when I looked at the driver details, I see that the provider of the driver is mentioned as "ESET", this being the provider of my anti-virus program NOD32 (in the "smart security" suite). The driver is also shown as "not digitally signed". See below :
Could it be that my ESET anti virus is somehow blocking this driver?? Or at least getting in its way? I've tried disabling the ESET firewall, but that did no good (obviously, because it happens for USB as well). But I'm finding this VERY strange!
I'll try deleting all the drivers now, and before re-installing them, I'll try to completely disable my ESET anti-virus. Maybe even uninstalling it and re-installing it back after. (for this I'll obviously cut my PC from the internet first)
I'll report back here with the result...