I made both computers have the same network name.  I made a couple of folders on the Vista computer shared and set them so you could read, write and edit them from anywhere.  I made the Vista computer visible and set file sharing on.

I could see the folders and I could access the files in one but not the other.  When I tried to copy a file to the folder from the win98 machine it wouldn't let me.  I turned off my firewall  and made certain the folders were shared.

I fussed for all morning changing things, making password just in case that was the problem.  

Nothing.

Next I took out the drive and I have a kit to hook up different drives to my Vista computer via a USB cable.  It has worked with peoples drives, it has worked with some of my old drives, it has worked with CD and DVD drives.  (you can see where this is going can't you?)  But it wouldn't see the drive from the Windows98 machine.  I tried multiple things from past experience and a few new from the Internet.  Disk Manager didn't see the drive.  Uninstalling the USB ports didn't help.  Putting the connector in a different USB port didn't help.

I took the second drive out of the computer and it worked with the same connectors.  However there are files on the first drive not on the second.