AAAGGGGHHH - what a stupid problem

[mattx]

Dell Dimension 3100

 

Keyboard and mouse fail after boot - [ only USB ] - have reset every jumper on the board, have installed USB card, still NOTHING.

Keyboard and mouse works fine in BIOS and in systernals ERD - anyone got any other ideas before it goes out the window ? [ not mine ]

I am NOT going to just re-install as that is not a cure - it's a cop out....

[powdarrmonkey]

Check what kb/mouse mode is set in the bios?

[SYNACK]

Yeap, you'll want to check that USB keyboard and mouse support are enabled in the BIOS and leagacy USB devices to.

 

It does sound like it is an issue with the installed version of windows so using a sp2 mouse + keyboard combo or via RDP / VNC I would try refreshing the HW plug and play manually on the system by going into device manager and right clicking on the computer object at the top of the treeview and selecting "Scan for hardware changes" if that did not work I would also use the New hardware wizzard from control pannel.

 

After doing that I would check to make sure that it or an "unknowen device" were not detected in device manager. If there are there is the posibility that your driver search path or driver files have become corrupted. If you are on a network the easiest way around this is to point the driver search at the windows\inf directory of a working install so that it can grab the drivers from there.

 

If it is not detected I would try a USB key or simmilar to see whether that is detected to rule out the USB controller drivers. If it does not show up I would be reinstalling the latest USB controller drivers avalible (probably a delete / reinstall as XP sp2 had most controllers drivers built in).

 

After that I would find a very high window and threaten it with some of newtons more intimidating laws

[mattx]

Managed to get it to see a mouse, then a keyboard - HD is faulty by the looks of it - full of bad sectors........