Keyboard is not responsive

[Guest]

I have a Dell Inspiron laptop with Windows XP Professional SP2 loaded. About
3 weeks ago, the keyboard became unresponsive. The laptop boots up fine, but
when presented with the Ctrl+Alt+Delete to Login screen, none of the keys
work on the keyboard, not even the numlock or caps lock. They keyboard does
work in the Bios setup and when I hit F8 to try and boot into safe mode. I
do not know what steps to take because I can't get logged in to see what
services are running, or if something got installed (spyware, virus, etc). I
do run Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition as well as Pest Patrol and Spybot.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I am currently in the
recovery console and the keyboard works fine. I don't know if I need to
replace the keyboard driver or something.

 

[Guest]

Update:

Last night, I started the automated recovery install of Windows XP.
Everything ran fine, keyboard worked great, all was good. After it rebooted
and I received the ctrl-alt-del login screen, I could not type anything. I
had all other peripherals detached (mouse, usb hub, network cable, etc).
Once I hit any key, it is locked up. Nothing works except the mouse.

It is appearing that something is being loaded (like spyware, virus) in the
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\CurrentVersion\Run but I cannot get there to inspect
that. Also, I searched the services which are starting via the recovery
console using the listsvc command. All were valid Windows services.


Any ideas and help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Kerry Brown]

I have a Dell Inspiron laptop with Windows XP Professional SP2 loaded.
About
3 weeks ago, the keyboard became unresponsive. The laptop boots up fine,
but
when presented with the Ctrl+Alt+Delete to Login screen, none of the keys
work on the keyboard, not even the numlock or caps lock. They keyboard
does
work in the Bios setup and when I hit F8 to try and boot into safe mode.
I
do not know what steps to take because I can't get logged in to see what
services are running, or if something got installed (spyware, virus, etc).
I
do run Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition as well as Pest Patrol and
Spybot.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I am currently in the
recovery console and the keyboard works fine. I don't know if I need to
replace the keyboard driver or something.

I found this from a Google search:

Can't logon after getting rid of spy-ware.
There is some spyware out there that will make it so you can't logon to your
Windows XP system after you get rid of that spyware. If that happens, try
this.
Boot from your XP CD. When prompted, enter R for the Recovery Console.
Enter the Admin password to get to the command prompt.
At the command prompt:
cd \windows\system32
copy userinit.exe wsaupdater.exe
exit (reboot the PC)

You should now be able able to logon.
Run regedit
Go to \HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\Winlogon
Change the userinit key to read c:\windows\system32\userinit.exe

It was found at this page:

http://www.sbisolutions.com.au/hints.html

Hope that helps,

Kerry

 

[Guest]

Kerry,

Thank you so very much for this information. I have searched high and low,
even on Google. I obviously didn't use the right keywords. I sure hope this
helps and will repost the outcome no matter what.

Thank you again,

Pat

 

[Guest]

Kerry,

Well I tried the procedure and it is still the same. I wonder if the value
in the registery has been removed or if it is just set to userinit=
with no program name therefore not being able to logon.

Any help on that area? Does anyone know how to be able to use regedit
without logging onto the computer?

Thanks,

Pat

 

[Peter Foldes]

Called Dell Support yet?

 

[Kerry Brown]

Kerry,

Well I tried the procedure and it is still the same. I wonder if the
value
in the registery has been removed or if it is just set to userinit=
with no program name therefore not being able to logon.

Any help on that area? Does anyone know how to be able to use regedit
without logging onto the computer?

Thanks,

Pat

Sorry, I'm out of ideas. Did you check with Dell support?

Kerry

 

[Guest]

Kerry,

Yes, I sure did, they are no help. I have to admit, their service is
horrible, nothing like it used to be. I couldn't understand anyone on the
phone, and they couldn't understand me. I kept asking for a technician, but
no one could understand what I was asking for. This was after being on
hold for 2 hours. So I tried again and got disconnected after an hour and 11
minutes. Nonetheless, on the 3rd time, the person said, you should reload
all of windows and you will more than likely lose all your data.

I did find a link to PEBuilder which should allow me to boot a pre-image of
windows and use registry editor. I guess I'll see if this works.

I have a feeling that the entry in the registry is hosed up and this is what
has caused the problem. The link you supplied stated that if that line in
the registry isn't populated with userinit.exe and terminated with a comma
that you will never be able to login to the system.

Thanks,

Pat