[weedahoe]

Go to your task manager and kill the following processes.

MDM.exe
Rapimgr.exe
Wcescomm.exe
Wcesmgr.exe

If all of them are not there do not get concerned. After all of them are closed, soft reset your PPC and restart ActiveSync, once the PPC is fully booted try to connect it back to the PC via the USB cable and see what you get. 3rd party firewalls such as Norton, ZoneAlarm and even XPs own firewall will close thoer ports needed to be open to communicate with the PPC.