Solved: "Lost" mouse & keyboard

[lisakmusco]

So here's what happened: I've been updating drivers and such trying to improve hubby's RCT3 game performance. Haven't done anything radical, just updated drivers. All has been working fine. Don't think this has anything to do with the problem, but figured I'd include it to help in diagnosis. The real problem begins the next day after all was still working fine from the last update.

In the morning I attempt to check email (outlook) and get all sorts of connection errors -- a quick check of my modem shows a connection problem. No big deal, I reboot and go to work -- maybe its a BellSouth issue. When I come home I try again, no email server connection, yet when I reboot my modem shows all ok. When I open email, the connection fouls. Reboot again, all looks good, even the dsl connection (ie, all lights green). So this time I open Internet Explorer and receive a "can't display" page, even though my modem shows a good connection. BellSouth Fast Access has a help program that pops up when there's a problem loading a webpage and asks if you want help, so I say yes and it goes through its thing -- testing connection, etc. and it tells me it needs to reset network settings, which it has done before. Only this time, when it reboots the computer, I get the lovely grey "active desktop recovery" screen and no mouse or keyboard.

Here is what I have tried so far:
* rebooting many times (both with reset and power buttons),
*unplugged the mouse/keyboard and replugged them (of course while power is off), also tried each individually
*booting in safe mode and windows doesn't even load all the way
* booting w/last known good configuration -- no difference
* I even tried putting the mouseware cd in thinking I could reload the drivers but that of course didn't get very far as I couldn't progress through the installation program. (It was very late and I was very tired and frustrated -- been a lot of late nights).
* called BellSouth tech support -- didn't really expect much, but since it was their help program that caused the problem I figured it couldn't hurt. They suggested all the things I had already done and then told me it sounded like I needed a new mouse and keyboard, unless I could test them on another system (which I couldn't/can't), and even if I could he had no further suggestions....
So now I'm looking to you guys.......please help!!!

 

[JSanguancheu]

Does the keyboard work outside of Windows?
ie. There's no keyboard/mouse error displayed during the POST process, you can still get into BIOS Setup, and use a bootup floppy disk to get to the command line.

If so, then it's probably not a hardware problem.

I'm not that familiar with Win2k anymore. Anyone know if the install CD has a repair option??

 

[lisakmusco]

Yes, it does as I have been able to hit F8 to attempt the different boot options (safe mode, last good config., etc.). I have not seen any error during the boot process, just the end result of no response once completely booted.
Further, I brought the mouse with me to work and took a chance and plugged it in here....it works.
I think the win2k cd does have a repair option (sounds familiar anyway). I'm going to try that tonite. I assume I'll be able to have keyboard control if I boot from the cd (not like when I tried the mouse driver cd -- what WAS I thinking there? duh!), right?
It actually crossed my mind to try that last night and I discarded the idea (after the mouse driver cd debacle). Clearer thinking here in the light of day....and even since the original post.

 

[JSanguancheu]

Yep. It does sound like the keyboard, mouse, and motherboard seem to be working just fine.

Sounds more like Windows got corrupted somehow.

Give the repair option on the Win2k CD a try. If that doesn't work, maybe someone else here more familiar with Win2k could help.

 

[lisakmusco]

Well, I tried using the Win2k cd to repair windows. It didn't work. So it looks like my next option is to rerun windows setup but don't I first need to try and save my data somehow? I can never remember ... and have a lot of documents and email and stuff that I cannot afford to lose.
I'm pretty confident that the actual mouse and keyboard aren't the problem, though, because at least the keyboard does work outside of windows (ie in BIOS) and mouse worked on another computer. ...
One interesting thing I noticed last night is that after I ran the windows repair and it rebooted (and windows did its thing -- detecting and installed new hardware - like the mouse) it got stuck where it wanted me to switch CDs to install the printer (which is on a usb port). I switched the CDs like it asked, but then could not direct it to continue as I still had no keyboard/mouse (even though I saw windows detect the mouse, but I don't think it finished installing the mouse because it tried to do the printer first). So then I unplugged the printer and reran the repair and it still did the same thing when it rebooted....

 

[JSanguancheu]

Very weird.

You should definitely backup the important data before you try running setup again.

Best way to do this would be to take out the HDD and put it in another PC as a slave drive, especially since your keyboard and mouse aren't working on this PC.

 

[lisakmusco]

Well, that's what I did. Took some trial and error to get another HDD to recognize mine as a slave, and get to my data, but we eventually got it, and reformatted and reinstalled everything and all is well.

 

[JSanguancheu]

Wonderful. Fixed the problem and learned a few new procedures in the bargain.

You can mark this thread as solved.