nicked on 1/1/2009 at 19:36
How do you turn a sophisticated piece of technological wonder into a very expensive paperweight? Why, screw up your mouse and keyboard drivers of course.
In the process of trying to get my PS3 controller working on Windows, I've managed to disable or remove the drivers for my USB keyboard and mouse, meaning I can't log into Windows or, in fact, do anything.
I've got a disk which came with my PC that says it's got diagnostics and device drivers on it, but if I boot from it, all I get is the diagnostics. When booting from this disk, the mouse and keyboard work fine, although if I go into the test for USB mouse, it won't give me a cursor.
I've also got my OS disk (Windows Vista 32 bit) but when I boot from that, it says "Loading files" and then pauses on a blue sky background with a (working) mouse cursor, and never gets any further...
I tried hard-resetting the machine and then doing a Windows repair when prompted, but this had no visible effect; neither did a system restore.
I don't have a PS2 mouse or keyboard; I do have a USB to PS2 connector thingy, but neither the mouse or keyboard wants to work through them (I get power, just no response) - although I'm pretty sure the PS2 functionality on this PC has never worked. It is turned ON in the Bios, so dunno what could be causing it.
I appear to be totally screwed - how can I reinstall the drivers without having to format my hard drive or something radical like that (seems like that'd be using a nuke to kill a wasp).
It seems like such a simple thing, but it has utterly stopped my computer from doing anything! :(
Any advice?
bikerdude on 2/1/2009 at 00:01
Quote Posted by nicked
I appear to be totally screwed - how can I reinstall the drivers without having to format my hard drive or something radical like that (seems like that'd be using a nuke to kill a wasp).
* can you get into the bios on startup..?
* have you tried going into safe mode..?
* have you tried plugging in your pc kayeboard and mouse into different USB sockets, this sometimes gets windows into redetecting the deive and then reload the driver
nicked on 2/1/2009 at 09:24
Yay, I fixed it!
Eventually, after several restarts, I managed to get the PS2 connector to work with the mouse, and could use the Onscreen Accessibility keyboard to log in to Windows. Then it was just a case of uninstalling the rogue drivers from Control Panel, and restarting to allow Windows to detect and fix the USB peripheral drivers.
What a pain though! Note to self: buy an emergency PS2 keyboard!
Bikerdude: It was not functioning in safe mode; I could get in the BIOS, but everything was AOK in there; I tried switching the sockets around, but it was definitely the drivers causing the issue not the hardware, so that had no effect. Thanks for the suggestions though! I'm just glad it's all working. Maybe I should buy a 360 controller - at least they're officially supported for Windows...
