Mouse/Keyboard die directly after choosing to run USB/Mint9

[gwac]

I'm using pLop boot manager on a win xp machine to run linux from a pen drive. I run plop from a cd, the boot manager comes up, I choose USB from the list. Previously I have Lucid Puppy installed on the pen drive, ran fine no problems, just couldn't get the internet to work. So I install Mint 9 (linux) on the same flash drive. Now every time I choose USB from the plop boot manager screen, my mouse and keyboard instantly turn off and refuse to work. The only way to get them back on is unplugging the cable from the power supply. This is a truly bizarre problem to me. If anyone has any idea what's going on I'd appreciate the help. Thank you!

Edit: On the plop website it says "USB keyboards are not supported by my drivers. When you boot Linux or Windows, then your keyboard will work again when those operating systems are taking control over the USB hardware." So then how do I choose to start Linux Mint 9 from the menu that comes up if nothing recognizes the keyboard? I'm so confused.

[Rubberman]

Configure the menu so that it will boot mint by default after the timeout. In any case, you might want to replace plop with something more current that can recognize USB input devices.