Com ports disappeared

I have a situation - I have a new Sony VAIO desktop with
Win XP MCE that's less than a month old. Installed all
my software, etc, and happily working with it. Last week
after one of the windows updates my serial ports
disappeared (I have a Palm and the Hotsync suddenly
stopped working). If I go into device maanager, there are
no com ports listed. However the internal PCI modem says
it's connected to com 3.

I tried a few things then ended up calling Sony support
who informed me that there's a conflict between one of
the recent Windows Updates and the Palm desktop software
v4. The Palm software apparently needs to be v4.1.4. They
suggested I use the system restore and go back to an
earlier point prior to the update and prior to the Palm
desktop install. Then install the updated Palm software
and any other programs that I'd installed after that
point.

I've done this and am now back prior to the Palm install
(which btw - hotsync worked fine until last week). I've
actually restored the system back to the 3rd day I owned
it. However the COM ports are still MIA.

Any ideas if there's any way to manually add them back???
or force the system to re-recongnize them? SONY's answer
is use the restore CD and recover the whole system...but
as it's less than a month old - I'd rather not. I have a
lot of software installed - video editing, graphics
etc...and it's a long process. I've got it just the way
I'd like it to be - of course though I need my com ports.

I've also tried, going into the BIOS and restoring the
defaults and when I log back in it rediscovers the modem,
and printer ports, but still no COM ports.

I'd appreciate any suggestions - I really prefer not to
do a full recover/reinstall.

Thanks,
Tina

Com ports disappeared