Win98 + cable broadband + USB problem

[benthos]

I have been happily connecting to cable broadband via USB for about a year. Yesterday, however, my PC crashed and since then it does not acknowledge the existence of either USB port (which means I can't use my printer either). NTL informed me that this is a common problem with W98+broadband+USB and that I need to get an Ethernet card to reconnect to broadband. Also, on start up I'm told that there is a problem with initialising 'ODI/NDIS2 Mapper' and 'ERROR: not bound to any boards'. I've tried fixing my ODI and NDIS2 drivers by downloading files that the wizard couldn't find on either my hard drive or on my W98SE cd-rom, but this doesn't seem to do anything. Trying to reinstall my broadband software simply tells me that I've got a Network Adaptor problem.

Can I rescue my USB ports or do I have to get some new kit?

Ta.

[Dodge]

To get them working we need to figure out what happened in the first place.

What were you doing when it crashed?

Did you install or uninstall anything prior to this happening? (Hardware or Software)