keyboard and mouse dont work at login screen Solved/Closed

Question

Hello, 

I would appreciate any ideas on this one.  My keyboard and mouse do not work when I get to the windows xp login screen (or in once windows loads if I bypass the login screen).

I have windows XP with service pack 2 on a dell desktop. Just stopped working one day when I started it.

They do work in bios
They do work in puppy linux booted from CD

I am using a ps2 mouse and a ps2 keyboard.  I have also tried a usb mouse with no success.

Here is what I have tried so far

1. swap out the bios battery
2. remove the bios battery
3. manual restore (replacing the system, sam, default, security, software files from repair directory)
4. replacing the ntdlr and ntdetect.com files from the backups in the i386 directory
5. replacing the mouse, mouse.drv, mouclass.sys, keyboard.drv, and kbdclass.sys files with ones from a windows boot disk or another working machine
6. removing allthe mouse and keyboard driver and sys files - this did not work, but the mouse arrow did disapper showing there was some effect.
7. plug in the keyboard and mouse at different times in the boot process.

It would be nice to not have to do a reinstall if I can avoid it. since I would want to do a full backup first to be safe among other reasons. 

Any thoughts would be helpful. 

Thanks

E-Rok

E-Rok · Accepted Answer

ok, so I finally solved my own problem.  took a while.  tried a couple more things in the process.

Tried just changing the SAM file (changes the users to original) that did not work.

Found a way to do a manual uninstall of the last few windows updates
(to do this you go to recovery console , change directory to the update you want to uninstall i.e. $ntunsinstallkb######$/spuninst/ and run the command: batch spunist.txt - note it doesnt work all that good sometimes)  

tried that it did not work

Eventually after searching on microsofts website about drivers I found out I have been replacing the wrong file.  I needed to replace the i8042prt.sys file - thats the one that runs the ps2 ports - why usb didnt work dont know. - I may have screwed it up since it doesnt work now when I swapped a bunch of files.  ill go back and fix it.

anyway, I took the i8042prt.sys file from my c:/i386/system32 directory (i think it was that one, maybe a subdirectory or just 1386) and deleted the one in c:\windows\system32\drivers\ (which happened to be dated the problem date appeard) and put the one from i386 in there (btw, I needed to use a linux boot cd since recovery console would not let me into the i386 directory)

the file I replaced it with was from 2002.

once I rebooted, the mouse and keys worked!! yeah!!

hope this helps somoene else, and they dont have to pay dell $130 bucks for nothin (i didnt either, called and hung up, they were going to make me do a system restore, which wouldnt have worked since my computer is from 2003 and does not have a ghost drive.)

kennethhui · Answer

hi, can you possibly upload the 2002 version of these files because i'm having the exact same problem, thanks ken

Andrey_Ra · Answer

The problem may be in the missed registry tree. In my case I have copied it from another win 2003 computer and problem is gone. Here it is (save this in the text file with .reg extension and import in regedit):


Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Kbdclass\Parameters]

"ConnectMultiplePorts"=dword:00000000

"KeyboardDataQueueSize"=dword:00000064

"KeyboardDeviceBaseName"="KeyboardClass"

"MaximumPortsServiced"=dword:00000003

"SendOutputToAllPorts"=dword:00000001

Jeff · Answer

I know this thread is pretty old, but my dad's Dell XP machine had the same issue.  Keyboard (USB) worked in Bios, but not responsive at all at the login screen.  Mouse was powered (USB), but didn't work at login screen either.  No PS/2 ports on this desktop.

So I was reading this thread about the i8042prt.sys fix and had to use expand.exe on i8042prt.sy_ file from a XP CD I had, then save to flash drive ... then went back to the other room with this Dell, and the keyboard and mouse were working.

I didn't have it on my network since I knew it was full of viruses and malware, so it didn't download any keyboard/mouse drivers while sitting there.

I guess what I am trying to get at, is if this happens to anyone that finds this thread, to let it sit at the login screen for 15 minutes and see if it helps.

Keyboard and mouse dont work at login screen

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