Turned on old computer and can't get keyboard and mouse to work

[cmac813]

I have a really old Compaq Presario SR1150NX that I haven't used forever and I wanted to try and turn it on just to see if it would work. It started up and brought up the login screen but I can't get my mouse or keyboard to work on it. I tried a PS2 keyboard and an USB keyboard and neither worked. I tried a USB mouse and it wouldn't work either.

I think maybe this means my mobo is fried? If not what might the problem be? If the computer starts up I thought it should be fine but maybe the mobo is messed up even though the computer starts. Thanks for the help.

Also if the mobo is fried, can i hook up my hard drive to the other computer and just take files off of it. My old compaq is running XP and my new computer is running windows 7 so if I hook it up will there be problems. I have another old computer that is running XP but I want to see if it will work on the new computer first or not. Thanks.

 

[Bubbaleone]

There are two solutions to restore the keyboard and mouse functionality; The first solution is to open Device Manager, click View and select Show Hidden Devices, then right-click each keyboard and mouse icon and select Uninstall. Ignore any warning to reboot the PC until you've uninstalled every instance of keyboard and mouse, then reboot and Windows will automatically install fresh drivers.

The second solution is booting to the XP installation CD and performing a repair installation. This will restore all system files and device drivers while retaining all your third-party programs and personal data files.

Unless you can get a PS/2 mouse to work in Safe Mode the repair installation is your best bet. Also see if the keyboard will work at power-on, enter BIOS and check that USB support is enabled.


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[cmac813]

There are two solutions to restore the keyboard and mouse functionality; The first solution is to open Device Manager, click View and select Show Hidden Devices, then right-click each keyboard and mouse icon and select Uninstall. Ignore any warning to reboot the PC until you've uninstalled every instance of keyboard and mouse, then reboot and Windows will automatically install fresh drivers.

The second solution is booting to the XP installation CD and performing a repair installation. This will restore all system files and device drivers while retaining all your third-party programs and personal data files.

Unless you can get a PS/2 mouse to work in Safe Mode the repair installation is your best bet. Also see if the keyboard will work at power-on, enter BIOS and check that USB support is enabled.
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I can't get into device manager because I can't sign in because my keyboard and mouse don't work. To boot to the XP installation CD, do I just put the XP CD in the computer when it turns on? Does this mean it's not a motherboard issue? Thanks for the help.

 

[paul878]

Can you get in the bios and see if the keyboard works?
Try Safe Mode also.

 

[cmac813]

So I don't know what happened but I got the keyboard and mouse to work, USB ones, I unplugged the dvd/cd-rom cable and now the keyboard and mouse work. There is nothing on my computer however, it doesn't have any of my icons on the desktop or anything like that, looking through my computer I can find my files but they are not on my computer just the hard drive if that makes sense. If i click my computer and my documents it shows my music and my pictures both empty folders. But when I click on the hard drive and go to my documents, all my files are there. Also my computer says unable to complete genuine windows validation whatever that means.

So I'm happy that I got it start up but how do I restore it to have all my files on the computer and what does the windows validation thing mean? Thanks for the help.

 

[cmac813]

So I restarted to see what happens and it says "Windows cannot laod the user's profile but has logged you on with the default profile for the system.

DETAIL - The system cannot find the file specified.

So I guess that explains why all my files are just on the hard drive. It looks like it reverted the computer back to when I first bought it since none of my files are on there. I tried to boot using the last known good configuration and the same thing happened. I then went to the control panel and user accounts and clicked user accounts and a Internet explorer script error message pops up and it says an error has occurred in the script on this page, do you want to continue running scripts on this page and I try to click yes and no and the error won't go away so I had to restart.

Does anyone have any ideas on what I can do or why this problem happened?

 

[Bubbaleone]

Your User Profile is damaged: Recover a damaged Windows XP user profile. This is a bit tedious, but Greg Schultz does a good job of walking you through it.

But the first thing to try when attempting to recover a damaged user profile is a System Restore operation. The System Restore utility is designed to allow you to return your computer to the state it was in at an earlier time period. In this case, the goal is to return your system to the state it was in before the user profile was damaged.


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[cmac813]

Your User Profile is damaged: Recover a damaged Windows XP user profile. This is a bit tedious, but Greg Schultz does a good job of walking you through it.

But the first thing to try when attempting to recover a damaged user profile is a System Restore operation. The System Restore utility is designed to allow you to return your computer to the state it was in at an earlier time period. In this case, the goal is to return your system to the state it was in before the user profile was damaged.
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Thanks, I'll check that out. I tried system restore but it only had the date on there from when I bought it, there were no later dates to restore to. What was weird was I went into control panel - add/remove programs and it showed my programs on there and showed the last time they were used and everything but I'm still on the default profile so I don't know how they show up. I'm currently doing a compaq system recovery and I'll see what that does if anything. I'll check out the link after this compaq recovery and see what happens, thanks for the tips, this is an odd problem I've never had before.

 

[cmac813]

I think when I did the compaq system recovery it messed everything up. When I was on the default profile I could still get online and see all my files, now I can't get online and my files are harder to find. I don't even know what to try now. The broken profile thing didn't work because my profile wasn't in there and now I can't get the boot screen to come up, it just goes to the login screen. Stupid compaq system recovery.

 

[Bubbaleone]

I suggested you first try a System Restore and if that failed to then perform the User Profile recovery using the step-by-step instructions I linked to. Your decision to perform the factory recovery without backup, instead of the User Profile recovery procedure, returned the computer to it's original state when first purchased. Your third-party programs and all your personal files are gone. Google "software recovery tools" to learn about options that may recover some of your overwritten data.

 

[cmac813]

I suggested you first try a System Restore and if that failed to then perform the User Profile recovery using the step-by-step instructions I linked to. Your decision to perform the factory recovery without backup, instead of the User Profile recovery procedure, returned the computer to it's original state when first purchased. Your third-party programs and all your personal files are gone. Google "software recovery tools" to learn about options that may recover some of your overwritten data.

I didn't know system recovery would delete all my stuff, I thought it would recover files or something, I googled that stuff but now I can't connect the old computer to the internet because it doesn't register the wireless card or the USB wireless card I have either.