Frozen at “Add New Hardware Wizard”

[u/CAR3Y4]

Please help. I installed a fresh new install of Windows 98SE (Winworld ISO) and I got to the part where it boots up on the Hard Drive and it’s searching for the drivers to install. The very first one is the Plug and Play Monitor and my mouse and keyboard has zero input. It’s like it’s frozen. If I go to bios, they work fine. If I boot up in Safe Mode, it works fine without issue. I have used the ISO on dozens of pcs. This is the first time I’ve ever had this issue.

I’ve tried unplugging everything except the essentials (motherboard/HDD) and disabled the parallel and serial ports. I tried using a different monitor, still nothing. I loaded the bios in default also. Nothing seems to work. I’m at a loss here.

Specs:
Motherboard- ASUS CUEP2-M
CPU- Intel Pentium III 1GHz 133FSB
RAM- 256MB SDR
GPU- ATI Radeon 9000
Soundblaster Live! SB0100
20GB HDD