Mouse and keyboard work in blue screen mode but not when rebooting??

[scobbett]

Hi,

My mouse and keyboard just stopped working when a family member downloaded something for his IPOD. He shut the computer down and when you turn it back on it goes to the normal 'enter password' screen but the mouse and keyboard are frozen. If I restart the computer and hit F12 (blue screen) the mouse and keyboard work fine for these operations but not for normal computer operations. I have tried starting in safe mode and that does not work... any suggestions?

[killerb255]

Are you using USB keyboards and mice?

Did your family member unplug the keyboard and/or mouse to make room for his/her iPod?  If so, then your computer is simply trying to redetect your keyboard and mouse on startup.

[scobbett]

Thanks for the post- Yes I am using USB but already tried unplugging mouse and keyboard before rebooting. When I turn the computer on and hit F2 for menu or F12 for reboot the keyboard and mouse work fine. WHen the system goes to log on to windows the light on the mourse goes out and the keyboard does not work... I guess it is time to take it to the computer doctor. Appreciate your help!

[killerb255]

That's irrelevant. 

It doesn't matter if your computer detects your keyboard and mouse during the POST screen (the black startup screen that detects your RAM, hard drives, and all that good stuff).

Windows doesn't care.

Let's say you have six USB ports.  To make this easier, we'll label them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Let's say you had your keyboard plugged in USB port 1.

Let's say you had your mouse plugged in USB port 2.

Let's say that your family member decided to move your keyboard to USB port 3 and the mouse to USB port 4 because he/she thought their iPod was more important and needed to be in USB port 1.

Windows goes "OMG, where's teh keyboard? where's teh mouse?  Oh, okay...keyboard's in port 3 now...gotta change everything around..."

Normally when that happens and your computer's logged in, you'll see the "Found new hardware" window for that reason.

However, when you're not logged in, it usually happens in the background and you just have to wait about five minutes.

In other words...BE PATIENT!

...if, for some reason, you can't be patient, then grab a PS/2 keyboard, plug it in, log into your computer with that, and then plug in your keyboard/mouse, waiting for Windows to go through it's "OMG, where's teh keyboardz and mouze" phase.