USB not working

[pilotmanitalia]

ok this is my problem. I had XP before, which gave me an error message and crashed. I didn't have the XP CD so I decided to give Linux an error. By what i can find, I have a somewhat unique problem. My USB drives no longer work. They light up green, so they obviously have some power and so on, but there is no response from any devices that you plug in, i.e. mouse, flash drives, etc. Nothing works. I am a complete newcomber to linux, i.e. have literally ZERO experience with this system whatsoever. I want to learn it, so I don't want to give up at this point, but have no idea how to continue with the system. What advice can anyone give me?

Thanks!

[halj32]

if you have a PC just buy a pci usb card & plug it in & use that.
if a laptop you'll have to use a pcmcia card... but be warned some laptops use the same bus for both usb & pcmcia so it may not work