PAS_PAA

SUCCESS!!!!!

Finally got it to work. In desperation I did a complete reformat of C: and reinstall of XP. Not 100% sure what made it work this time, but here are the steps in case anyone is interested. My guess is that I installed some drivers in wrong order or forgot a restart at some point?!?!?

1. Install XP. Has to be with SP2 slipstreamed. Otherwise it installation will fail.
(In the following, restart whenever prompted)
2. Install Chipset Drivers
3. Install Video Drivers. I used the Intel Video drivers
At this point all USB ports stopped working.
4. Install ACPI drivers
5. Install Audio driver I
6. RESTART
7. Install Audio driver II
8. RESTART
9. Install remaining drivers in order : Camera, LAN, modem, cardreader, touchpad (got an error on this one, but it doesn't seem to matter), TVCard, WLAN , Bluetooth, EnergyCut, Hotkey
10. Go to Settings -> Controlpanel -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager. Under USB controllers, start uninstalling the Intel(r) ICH8 Family USB Universal Bus Host Controller and then restarting. After restart, the PC finds new HW and now the USB ports should work again.
Voila!

Thanks for the answers to my queries. After getting this to work I can recommend this laptop. Very good deal (after mail in rebate )