I have a problem on a W2K Professional system, and would appreciate any help from anyone knowledgeable.

It's a running system, but the keyboard and mouse simply don't work after booting to 2K. The KB works OK in the BIOS settings screens, and even the F8 key is active in the W2K boot sequence. However, as soon as the 2K kenel is loaded, the keyboard locks up (not even caps lock or Numlock will change state). I have gone through the various startup options after hitting F8 (safe mode, command line mode, troubleshooting, etc.) but in all cases the KB/mouse are still non-functional. If you allow the system to boot completely, then it is possible to see that the system itself is in fact running (eg., insert and Audio CD and the cd player starts up, insert a new USB device and it is recognised and a driver is installed, etc.). Howver, it has apparently got slower, as if it's polling something/timing out.

This situation has come about as a result of having applied a sucessful update from a w2k Pro install CD. This apparently went sucessfully (the details are hazy here). However, at the end, the problems began. One thing I do notice is that a login screen pops up during the boot, with Administrator as the user, but greyed out. It immediately passes on and continues to boot without stopping, which makes me suspicious that it is stuck in some sort of mode where the keyboard is disabled, for instance in an install/update....

I have more info about what I observe, but it would just confuse the issue for now. Has anyone seen this behaviour before? How do you get out of this condition? Anything at all that might be relevant to try and fix this?

PS/2 or USB keyboard and mouse? If PS/2, is it possible that you've got the keyboard and mouse in the wrong ports? Maybe the upgrade made W2k picker about that or something?

Have you tried unplugging and re-plugging the keyboard and/or mouse while the OS is up? Tried a different keyboard and mouse?

I don't think the administrator thing has much to do with it. You can probably rule that out.

Sorry I don't have more help. That's an odd situation.

Further to this, I have seen on more than one type of PC if the USB keyboard and USB mouse are plugged in the "wrong way around" neither will work. What I mean is that like the older PS/2 connections which are KB and mouse specific, it would seem the USB are the same.

I know this shouldn't happen since a USB port is a USB port but my Dell Dimension 4100 definitely does this - perhaps it is a BIOS thing. I haven't ever tried using them in the BIOS when their in the wrong ports though. The mouse is optical and the obvious symptom is that the LED won't light if plugged into the wrong port.

I would first see if unplugging both devices (keyboard and mouse) makes the problem go away (assuming your BIOS lets you boot without kbd/mouse, some do, others require you to set an option to allow it).

Then I would see if replacing one or both of those bits of hardware solves the problem. Or, alternatively, seeing of those bits of hardware work when plugged into another PC.

Although from your description of the sequence of events, you are right to suspect a software issue with the CD update. You just need to be absolutely sure you've ruled out failure of the hardware first (and, as others have said, ruled out a swapped kbd/mouse).

Thanks for the responses so far: I have tried all the verifications suggested (swapping, swapping other h/w in, to other machines, one out, etc.) and there is no difference. I am reasonably confident that it's not the h/w, since they operate during power up and on other bits of kit. Although there's USB devices plugged in, the kb/mouse are definitely PS/2 style and are in the right connectors. So I am pretty stumped.

I also tried to boot from the install CD and it loads all the mini ports and then....

.. hangs waiting for something, so I can't even do much to attempt to repair a damaged installation, which is less than good.

Any other ideas?

This is a REAL long shot. I have noticed in the past and present that ALi keyboards bios chips and certain keyboards don't play well. This problem was most evident with KeyTronic keyboards. All kinds of weirdness would happen.

I know keyboard bios chips are hard to determine now-a-days (I think they're built into the CPU chipsets now). Are there any ALi chips on your motherboard? I know.... there is a very slim chance. Hey, I gave it a shot!

There is a new version of the PS/2 keyboard/mouse port driver in Windows 2000 Service Pack 3. Although the list of bugfixes for SP3 do not describe your particular bug, they do describe similar bugs and perhaps SP3 might be your solution.

Give Service Pack 3 a shot if you can.

Yeah, but how do I apply it with a dead KB?

Don't know, to be honest: I'll have to have a look at it when I go back. I must admit that BOTH keyboards that I tried with it were the same make. I think I'm gonna have to take another one along for comparison...

Just confirming that the administrator login you are seeing probably has nothing to do with this. The greyed out screen is the same thing I see when I set a 2000 box to auto login. Basicially the system types the username and password in quickly enough that the only thing that gets seen is the greyed out fields while the system verifies the password.

On the keyboard front, no clue offhand what the problem might be. You could try booting off a Windows 2000 CD and see if the keyboard works there (as it does boot the 2K kernel for the install). If it does work, running through the recovery options might reverse the update that was applied and fix the problem, but with this also comes the risk of damaging it furthur.

OK, that's nice to know. More or less the conclusion I drew: I did start to go through a boot from the install CD, but it loaded all the mini ports and then just hung up! So I couldn't even get to the damned repair options. I can't even to a re-install over what's on the disk, either. I am utterly frustrated by this, as it's the first time in a long time that I have gone through everything I can think of only to have no sucess.

I am utterly frustrated by this, as it's the first time in a long time that I have gone through everything I can think of only to have no sucess.

It's really starting to sound like some kind of a hardware failure, then. Like at the motherboard or something.

Does a USB keyboard work when the PS/2 one is disconnected?

- Trevor

But then why does in work in BIOS? Does it work in SAFE MODE?

-Zeke

Schofiel,
I had the same exact problem with my brother's system. I would try to install Windows 2000 or Windows XP and run into the same exact problem of it hanging after it loads the keyboard drivers. The system was working fine before that and Windows 98 installs fine. Even without any service packs or anything, I would run into that problem.

I figured out that somehow the PS/2 ports became corrupted. I purchased a USB Keyboard and Mouse and that fixed my problem.

With the USB Keyboard and mouse, whenever the Operating System or other software tries to update the USB drivers, it kills the keyboard and mouse and requires a reinstall or a rollback to the "Last Known Good Configuration".

The only way that I was able to fix this problem fully was to replace the motherboard, but a workaround was to plugin a USB Keyboard and Mouse.

No, it doesn't work in any of the Safe modes, unforch. The load screen where it displays the 'F8" message for options, and the options screen, are the only places where it works in W2K (ie. the secondary boot loader). As soon as the system proper starts to load, then the KB/MSE go dead.

That sure sounds like corrupted driver files then. Are there any bad sectors on the OS partition? If the disk was on the way out it might've corrupted the driver files. Working for BIOS/F8 would seem to indicate that, because as far as the MOBO and KB are concerned, they work. It's W2k that's broken.

At this point I'd be tempted to just suck it up and reinstall the OS.

-Zeke

Again, my opinion also - except that the install disk runs only to the end of the Miniport list, and then hangs up, so I can't even try a re-install!

Aaargh. I can only try splattering the partition table or a reformat from a DOS boot floppy at the moment.

I recommend a 12 gage with deer slugs. Two barrels. Stop the suffering.

-Zeke

Well guess what, you are bang on the nose here. I took a Mac KB/Mouse and they worked fine. When I got to the Device management through the control panel, both the PS/2 mouse and keyboard reported "Error condition 32" saying tha the driver had been removed since it was not needed. Eh??? What planet do these bloody people at M$ live on where they build that capability into the system? Both were still regarded as active, and the 101 key keyboard was seen as an 84 key keyboard, which raised my suspicions. I couldn't see how to manually install a piece of hardware (you have to use the wizard, and if a device is installed and apparently working, of course it won't be detected....).

What I did do was remove the devices and then disconnect the USB stuff and reboot, expecting the system to find the PS/2 kb/mouse, but of course it didn't. Sigh, this is getting frustrating. Anyone know how to manually select and install drivers on W2K?

Do the KB and mouse show up in the Device Manager? If they're not working there should be yellow !'s on the icon.

If you know parts of the following please ignore, but here's how to check the driver files manually. Of course you'll need the Mac KB & mouse to do the navigating...

Right click 'My Computer'.
Choose 'Properties'
Select the 'Hardware' tab
Click the 'Device Manager' button
Click the + next to 'Keyboards'. There should be one entry.
Right click this entry and choose 'Properties'
Select the second tab, 'Driver'
Click 'Driver Details'.

What files do you see (if any)? My standard Dell 101 key k/b has the following files listed for it, both from M$
C:\WINNT\System32\DRIVERS\i8042prt.sys
C:\WINNT\System32\DRIVERS\kbdclass.sys

Click OK.
Now since I don't know where a keyboard .inf file would be I can't help past this. I have attached the two .sys files referenced above, in case they've been deleted from your machine. I also found a (somewhat) relevant M$ KB article here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q255151

I hope this is a little helpful.
-Zeke