USB problems with Windows 98

My roomate has an IBM thinkpad 600X with Windows 98 installed on it. For some reason, her USB hasn't been recognizing all hardware since we tried to use a USB memory key with it. We formatted since, and even now it will recognize her CD burner (an external one) but will not recognize her Sony mp3 player/recorder and we tried the USB key again and it won't recognize it either. When I try to automatically find the driver for them, it always brings me to direct.b1, which is not a driver from what I read online. Does anyone know what could be causing this? If you need any more information, just let me know and I'll provide everything I can. Thank you for your help.

heres a website dealing with nothing but USB problems, even has a forum:

http://www.usbman.com/