Serious USB/Win98SE problem....please help!!

[tomorrowman]

I sure hope someone here can help me. I have a couple of IBM PC300GLs 933Mhz/1GB/13GB into which I have recently install Win98SE.

My problem is that I cannot get any USB devices to work.
USB enabled in BIOS. Plug and play detects devices, installs drivers etc.... Device manager shows devices as operating correctly. But nothing, zip, zilch.

USB connect drives (CD, Memory key etc...) appear in device manager but not in Windows Explorer and simply cannot be accessed. In their properties there is no assigned drive letter.
USB connect wireless LAN nodes see the base station, configure fine in network properties but just don't operate.
According to the MS support site there is a patch to permit Win98SE to operate USB with the VIA chipset (which is in the 300GL). Applied that....nothing.

Help me please I'm going out of my mind here!!!!

 

[cyoung]

This may or not be the solution, but.....

Go into control panel, system, device manager.

Under the properties for the device, make sure that the Exists in all hardware profiles box is checked, and that the disable in this hardware profile is not checked.

Hope this helps!

 

[echoecho]

Check with IBM and see if there are drivers for your mother board, you may need these to get the USB root hub to work. I found this to be the case on several machines I have work on in the past when loading windows 98.

 

[jackha]

What have you got hooked up to the USB ports? Have you tried going in with the Hardware "you have hooked up" install program?

 

[tomorrowman]

I have just discovered that I have two models of PC300GL from IBM, one with VIA and one with Intel chipsets for USB so the problem isn't related to the apparent Via/98SE problem.

The hardware I've tested with is an IBM memory key, a Linksys wireless adapter, a logitech web cam and a Freecom CDR. some of which has "pre-install" s/w and some of which just come with drivers that you supply on demand.

I can find no such references on the IBM support site so I'm thinking I may be missing something on the microsoft end.

Weird weird weird...much scrathing of head and gnashing of teeth

 

[Guest_imported]

I've been running into the same problem recently and it seems to only happen when I do an upgrade to 98se but if I do a full install it works perfect everytime. hope this helps.

 

[mainegeek]

Check Bios for Enable IRQ for USB

Try adding LASTDRIVE=M in your config.sys

 

[tomorrowman]

I exhausted all the possibilities I was able to gather with no joy. In the end I took a gamble and purchased Win 2K. Bingo, instant cure. So it's a shame that I'll never know the "why" of it but a relief that this particular problem can be assigned to the closed pile.

Thanks all for your help.