AZ: Fear & Loathing in the land of Microsoft

[AgentZero]

Tips hat to Strategia

Right. I've decided that my system is suficiently fubared to require a format & reinstall, but I've run into a wee problem. When I run the installer, my (Microsoft, of all things) keyboard doesn't work. It's got the lights on when the machine boots up, they stay on while the installer is copying all the initial files, and then go off when the you get to the 'Starting Windows Setup' phase, just before the first screen comes up asking you which partition you want to install on.

I've tried everything I can think of, just having the keyboard alone plugged in, and tried every USB port on the machine, all to the same effect. I was thinking to maybe disable one of the USB controllers until I found out I only had one.

Does anybody have any ideas on what to do? Besides eviscerating the WinXP programmers, coz aside from making me feel better, that won't help.

[Atrocities]

Your key board might need to be replaced? The port on your MB for your key board might be bad.

[Jack Simth]

Snip

AgentZero said:
keyboard

Snip

AgentZero said:
tried every USB port

Snip

There's your problem. Most USB devices don't work until the machine is at least halfway booted up, as there's some fun stuff the computer has to do with drivers that can't easily be done with just the stuff in the boot sector. As near as I can tell, you need to do one of the following:
1) Borrow a keyboard from somewhere that isn't a USB keyboard, and use that for the installation process (not hard, but not always possible when a cheapskate manufacurer decides that USB is THE way to go, and doesn't include the standard ports for a keyboard and mouse).
2) Get an automatic installation CD for your chosen OS, so that no input is required at install time (difficult, but WILL work if you can arrange it)
3) Remove the hard drive you plan on installing the OS into, put it into a different machine (as the only HD), install the chosen OS on that, then put the hard drive in your machine (putting the host machine back into it's starting conditions, of course); will be buggy.

Well, there's three things for you to try, at least....

[kerensky]

There are adaptors that go from USB to PS2 connectors for keyboards. They are fairly inexpensive and can usualy be found at Radio Shack or its counterparts.

[Jack Simth]

That partly depends on the specific keyboard/mouse; for a while, I had a USB mouse plugged into my PS2 port via an adapter; the buttons wore out, so I got another USB mouse ... which wasn't compatible with the adapter (although that was fine - had spare USB ports); now, I have a wireless USB keyboard and mouse; both work great, although I still have the previous keyboard if I need it, and I almost never have to touch anything in the boot-up process....

[Fyron]

3 is not a good idea if you use NTFS... Windows will not boot up if you change the motherboard and/or CPU on it. I think this is just when you install on NTFS partition, but am not sure if it applies to FAT32 with any WinNT line.

[Jack Simth]

Yep. Hence, putting it dead last, and the "will be buggy" tag at the end. But it's something to try if the first two options either don't work or aren't remotely feasable. After all, if, after attempting that, he has to wipe his hard drive again, he really isn't any worse off, other than time spent....

But hey, opening up a computer to pull components is fun, so long as you have a reason for it and a hope of accomplishing something....

[Fyron]

Although... I wonder what would happen if you just get to the first reboot, but don't complete the installation and swap hardware then.

[Thermodyne]

Try unplugging the board and re-pluging it into another port. Also check the bios, some boards need to have a setting enabled for USB keboard support from bios. And lastly, some old boards can't support usb keybords during setup.