My friend the fact that you can not or are not able to use the USB drives as expected, makes me think that you might have a motherboard problem.
Can you take your motherboard back to the store and have them test with their hardware, and just get them to run memtest or do a partial OS install using a USB device. Not yours if you do not mind. If they are not able to do so then RMA the board.
To help us help you - please provide as much information about your system and the problem as possible.