The amount of hours lost from people's lives trying to get USB devices to
install on '98 is almost criminal. I've lost a couple of day's worth at
least. On the plus side, eventually everything got installed. The only
installations that went smoothly were the ones that had self-installers and
that's not many. The problem is that the dialog boxes are dysfunctional.
Perhaps the way I finally got a USB mouse to install has a more general
applicability. First, in safe mode, system, device manager, delete all
references to the USB device. After rebooting attempt through "the normal
means" to install the device. Unless you get lucky, this will not be
successful, but you need to do it so that you can write down the name of
every file that the dialog box either finds or says it can't find (just keep
hitting next or OK, I can't remember how it's worded) to advance to the next
file. Once you're through that, find those files, whether they are on the
disc that came with the device or in Windows (search using "show all files"
mode). Copy all of the files to a floppy. Now reboot to safe mode, go to
system, device manager, and re-delete any reference you may have just
created to the USB device. NOW repeat the normal install except type in
"A:\", where you've inserted the floppy. The dialog box still won't be able
to find anything, but you know you've navigated to the right place, so keep
ignoring the message and finish out the process. You should be OK after
that. Maybe.