keyboard, mouse, D:\ not found

[zybro77]

If you have a moment, will you please answer a question for me?  

If the answer to this question is already somewhere on your site, please forgive me for not finding it.

I have a boot problem with my WinXP machine:

From a powered off state, the machine will not find the mouse and keyboard. I must reset the computer at any time after power on before the mouse and keyboard are found.

Additionally, after some soft reboots, the machine will not see my 2nd hard drive.

That puts me in a catch 22 of sorts. I can power off then power on and trust that my 2nd hard drive will be found but I will have no mouse/keyboard to use the drive(s). I can reset the machine during or after the power on boot to enable my mouse/keyboard but risk the possibility of losing sight of the 2nd hard drive. Or I can ignore the problem and leave the machine powered on constantly (not a preferred option).

Have you ever seen/heard of anything like this before? Any thoughts, suggestions?

*IMPORTANT* -- Also, do you know if there is anything similar to the good 'ole autoexec.bat file that allowed users to run commands before Windows loads? Or what are the boot files for Windows these days? There must be a way to control the boot process...?

I would like to add a small script to test the availability of the mouse/keyboard/D: drive prior to Windows XP loading.

I tried this in autoexec.bat (failed, obviously -- Win XP ignores autoexec.bat...)

echo off
echo Keyboard test...
pause

The goal is simply to test the functionality of the keyboard. If the keyboard is found, pressing any key will continue the boot process. If the keyboard is not found, I simply press the reset button on my computer to try again... Of course this does not work but is there any way to do something like this

This has been driving my crazy for a few months now. I hope I am not out of line asking you this question. If you don't have time or don't know the answer, do you know anywhere else that may help with this?

Thanks for making such a great site!

[Zzyzx]

You can put a shortcut to your script in your startup folder. Start-->All Programs-->right click on startup-->Open. As you have noticed, autoexec.bat has no meaning in XP.

As to the keyboard, mouse, 2nd hard drive problems, I would check all your connections. Also check the device manager to see if everything is recognized. If not, try updating your drivers.

Hope this helps.  

[zybro77]

Thanks so much for your time and effort!

I checked, double checked, and rechecked the BIOS.

Fumbled around with some other dead ends.

Then finally just tried a USB keyboard instead of the PS/2 keyboard. The USB works - Maybe I have a bad PS/2 port.

Now everything is A-Ok.

Thanks!