seriously need help with my mame controller setup

[max 330 mega]

i am trying to get a sega genesis 6 button controller working on my computer, i bought a 9 pin to USB adapter cable and have the controller plugged into it and the adapter's driver installed, when checking it out in device manager it says the device is functioning, yet i cant get it to register in MAME, my joypad choices in the options menu is all ghosted out.the genny pad is 9 pin, and so is this adapter, so theoretically with the right manipulation or proper drivers it would work... right? :/
thanks guys, i hope i can find a way to get this working.

the initial reason i bought this was to use it with my MAS arcade stick, which is a 25 pin. i bought a 25 pin female to 9 pin male adapter, and then realized that the usb to 9 pin adapter i got has a male 9 pin as well, so this is just a temporary set up to hold me over until i get the proper parts. so now i have to order a 25 pin female to 9 pin female before i can get that all plugged in.... then comes the same fun task as im having setting up this genny pad, trying to get it to recognize the thing as a controller
thanks, help is greatly greatly appreciated

[Blanka789]

Maybe you don't have everything in MAME configured correctly, or the controller may just not be fitting right. You could try a different controller.

[max 330 mega]

well i think what the problem is, is that i need some kind of driver or something to let the computer know that it is a controller, i dont think my computer knows what to make of it, it just thinks its some thing plugged into it, and if it had a driver or something it would know what was supposed to happen when a button was pressed etc..
i may be wrong though, i really cant seem to find any help by googling it or anything.