What does the desktop do when you hit the hot sync button - nothing or start and stop. If you have sound enabled you should hear the USB connect and then disconnect.
Ok, here is the thing I'd suggest:
Go to My Computer, properties, Hardware, Device Manager, you should see the Palm Handheld Device. Hit the hot sync and see if the Device Manager screen refreshes. If it does then the device driver should be working, so skip to below. If it does not refresh then the device driver is not working properly - delete the item "Palm Handheld Device" from the device manager, reboot the computer and then hit the hot sync button. The Windows "new hardware" bubble will pop up and should complete or restore the device driver automatically.
Skipped step from above: In Windows Explorer do a search (F3 key) and search the entire hard drive for the following file without quotes: "PalmUSBD.sys" and see how many instances of the file are on your hard drive. Remove all instances, if multiple, except for the most recent. Copy the remaining instance to your desktop and then delete the previous one from it's location. Hit the hot sync button, the Windows "missing device" driver will pop up and it should give you the option to "search" for the driver. Point it to the one on your desktop and it should then complete the hot sync.
These two steps will keep you busy for awhile.....but I think the first one will work 99% of the time.
