Linux has a very long way to go before it can be used by the masses. A friend of mine, not knowledgeable about computers, brought his computer to me and I installed Mandrake 9.1 on it for him. After he got it back home we discovered that the USB ports were not working. Mandrake finds the root hub but will not detect any attached devices. Until we can get together again, he lives some 50 miles away, he has no way of knowing what might be wrong or how to fix it.
USB never worked for me on 9.1 either. This is probably not the answer that you want but I do suggest that you install 9.2 instead - there are many improvements, USB being one of them.
For example my digital camera and a usb memory stick just show up as icons on the desktop a short time after being inserted.
I think I may have had to remove and reinsert them the first time they were used to sort-of 'kick start' the auto recognition and configuration. No idea why :-)
HTH Syd