One more thought: if it proves impossible to get it running over USB, there is one other way. However, it might be trickier to do blind - the advantage of the RUU method is that once the phone is connected correctly you do the rest from the PC, which still has a working screen. It also requires you to copy a file to the SD card, which might be fun if you haven't got a card reader and can't see the screen. But for completeness, in case you need it later, here is the method.
An alternative way of running an RUU is as an update off the SD card through the bootloader. You need to extract the ROM zip file from the RUU and rename it PB99IMG.zip (exactly that - it's case sensitive). Copy that to the root of the SD card (not a directory in it), boot into hboot, and the bootloader will ask whether you want to apply the update. Press the "volume up" key to accept, and leave it to it. When it's done it will ask you whether you want to reboot the phone - I think you use volume up to accept that as well.
Now you can't see the screen, but the first part (confirming you want to do the update) should be OK. Just give it at least seven seconds after booting into hboot and press volume down. The timing should be the same as I described for getting into fastboot, except that rather than pressing power you press volume up. No problem with waiting a few seconds longer to be sure before doing this - computers are patient. Knowing when the update is done is of course much harder! Reflashing the whole phone is a big operation, so I'd be tempted to leave it 15-20 minutes, but this is really a guess.
And that's the big problem with this method - you don't know when it's done and whether it's succeeded! That's why running the RUU from the computer would be preferred.
But in case, out of a lack of other options, you need to try this, EddyOS wrote a guide on how to do it, including how to get the ROM from the RUU, which can be found
here at XDA.