Hi. I have a PC i haven't used for a few years - mostly because my ssd died and when i restored my backup (macrium reflect) to the replacement drive I don't recall it ever working quite as right. I've decided to try and solve this once and for all.

I have a backup that i have restored to my ssd but when i boot up the lights on my keyboard and mouse come on and work (including in the bios) but as windows 8 is loading the mouse goes off. the keyboard stays on but neither of them work when it gets to the log in screen (which is black and white, not colour but should be colour).

i tried safe mode but get the same behaviour.

i tried redeploy and the drivers it finds are from 2012 and 2013 but it doesn't make a difference.

i tried the windows advanced boot options stuff but can't restore a restore point (guessing there aren't any saved) or system image (wouldn't have used that feature as i used to use macrium reflect), startup repair says it can't fix anything. i think i can get a command prompt up but don't know what to do.

i was thinking i could upgrade it to windows 10 to see if that helped fix things but realised that i need to do an in place upgrade so i don't lose all my apps, settings, data but can't log in to do that.

is there a way to use the command prompt to setup another user in the hope that will let me log in and then try to analyse what is causing the problems?

i did try unplugging the mouse and kb and plugging them into other usb ports but mouse doesn't work at all and kb has less lights on than when working fully.

i tried booting without kb and m plugged in and then connecting at the log in screen and that didn't help either.

i'm almost certain that one of my RAM modules is faulty as it causes bios to detect 8gb total ram with faulty one inserted where as without it in and the other 3 modules in it detects 12gb RAM (i actually thought the ram was dual sticks or whatever the term is called so that you have to have 2 identical sticks inserted so bios sees them both but not according to this). not sure if this would affect anything?

in bios i have selected legacy usb support enabled.

I'm thinking this is a driver problem - possibly the usb driver?

I appreciate any help out there guys?

Steve

I should state that during redeploy it finds three drivers only. I think they are network related and an ahci one. I don't ever see it being too find kb or mouse drivers. Is there a way to change the drivers via redeploy? Or use command prompt?

ReDeploy only deals with changing drivers that are necessary to allow an image captured from one system to be bootable when restored onto a different system with different hardware. But if the image is Windows 8, you shouldn’t need any drivers because it has built-in support for USB up to 3.0, and even if your keyboard and mouse have advanced features that require drivers, they should work with at least basic functionality without them.

A faulty memory module can cause all sorts of problems, so if you even suspect that may be a problem, I would remove it at least until you get your system working again, and THEN you can reintroduce it and start running some tests to investigate that. But there’s no need to potentially deal with another problem that you can eliminate for now by simply removing a memory stick.

I personally wouldn’t recommend performing an in-place upgrade to a new Windows OS while your current OS is in such bad shape. If you can get everything working, then go ahead, but make a Reflect backup first of course. But if you can’t, then you might want to consider that clean install option instead, even though you’d have to reinstall apps and such. In fact, that might end up taking less time in the end than continuing to troubleshoot your current situation. Especially if you haven’t used that PC in a few years, there’s something to be said for starting fresh.

As for setting up a new user, there is a bit of a hack method you can use to access Command Prompt at the Windows lock screen and then use that to create a new user that will allow you to log into Windows, but of course that requires a usable keyboard. That technique is meant to help people who have forgotten the password to potentially the only admin account on the system. Incidentally, the existence of this method makes a great case for using BitLocker in order to protect it from being used against your own system by an adversary. Look at the post marked as the solution in this thread. Instead of using the Linux environment mentioned there, you can use your Rescue Media. Just click the PE Explorer icon in the taskbar to access a basic file browser. That will allow you to rename the necessary file. Just remember to change it back later: https://superuser.com/questions/1204814/how-can-cmd-be-opened-at-locked-screen

This may sound like a silly question, but how long did you wait for your keyboard to become recognized?  I've found sometimes when restoring images that my USB keyboard is recognized at the "BIOS" level for entering the system boot password but Windows won't recognize the keyboard for up to a minute the first time it starts.


Another thing to try, especially if you want to do a completely clean install, is use someone else's PC and make a bootable USB stick with Windows Media Creator Tool to make a Windows 10 install flash drive or optical disc.  Then try booting from that flash drive/optical disc on this PC where you're having trouble getting your KB and mouse recognized.  See if it recognizes them then.


I also forward JP's suggestions about the RAM module.  If you think it might be problematic, remove it for the time being.  Then when you get a stable working system you're happy with, put it back in and try troubleshooting that issue next.  Best to deal with one issue, even if it's just a potential issue, at a time.

Thanks for the help so far guys. I have already removed the ram, i had to because the pc quotient work properly with it in. I mentioned the team because i want sure that having 3 modules inserted (without the fourth faulty one) could cause a problem as i want sure if the type of ram it was was the type that needs to be inserted in pairs? Although I'm thinking it probably isn't because it recognises all the modules making the total ram to 12gb. That's all

As for win 10 disk - I've done this too and can confirm kb and Mouse work fine during the install screens etc when the disk is loaded.

When in bios it does say 3 keyboards and 1 mouse connected which I'm guessing the kb is doing some kind of trickery...?

There is no such thing as RAM modules that must be installed in pairs. There are some motherboards that require RAM to be installed in pairs, but that is fairly rare. However, RAM modules are nonetheless frequently SOLD as matched pairs because they are often installed in pairs even though this isn’t required. Part of the reason is because two 8GB sticks might be cheaper than a single 16GB stick, for example. Another reason is that installation in pairs allows you to take advantage of the dual channel memory capability that has been commonly supported for quite a while now. Basically, all else being equal, two 8GB sticks will outperform a single 16GB stick because in the former case, both sticks can be accessed simultaneously — but again, the fact that installation in pairs brings a performance benefit doesn’t mean installation in pairs is required.

Unfortunately I don’t have any immediate ideas for your USB quandary if you’ve already confirmed those USB ports and devices work in other environments, but I’ll post again if anything occurs to me.

Thank you. Also i have left windows for over an hour in the hope that it installed the correct drivers to no avail. I have various features to enable or disable in bios but don't think they would cause these problems and have tried turning certain usb related ones on and off to no avail.
The keyboard behaves a bit weird in that it comes on with minimal lights on to begin with but then full lights later when windows has loaded further. If i change the usb port it uses though it seems the kb only lights up minimally then. I have tried logging kb and Mouse into ps2 adapters and also tried another mouse but nothing works. Haven't tried another kb yet though. And yes that was what i meant about the ram in pairs. Thanks for enlightening me about the particulars 😀👍

Could some kind of bcd, mbr or gpt seeing create these problems or something similar that affects how the system is booted?
Also i created the macrium rescue drive using unbooten on a Mac, could that cause problems as i have seen on the usb drive that there is a bootcsmp and apple folder. Could incorrect /conflicting drivers be at play? Gotten put onto the restored drive?

You mentioned putting the KB and mouse on PS2.  Are you using a PS2 to USB bridge to connect PS2 KB/mouse?  I tried that on an older PC I had, but eventually gave up because Windows was constantly "forgetting" the KB was there.  Had to restart Windows to get it recognized again.


Here's how long ago that was: I purchased the PS2/USB bridge cable at Radio Shack!  LOL

MBR and GPT are partition layout schemes and have nothing to do with drivers. The BCD is what allows you to boot Windows, so a problem there would likely keep Windows from loading at all. There are other parameters that can be configured in the BCD, but I don’t think any of them could cause this outcome, and in any case you’d have to go out of your way to customize a BCD entry in those ways. It wouldn’t just happen. As for Rescue Media, if you got it to boot into Reflect, then the fact that it was created on a Mac wouldn’t matter. Reflect Rescue Media likely wouldn’t fix driver issues like this, but it certainly wouldn’t introduce them. Incorrect/conflicting drivers would normally be my guess based on the behavior, but as I mentioned above, Windows 8 and newer includes built-in drivers for USB, so there shouldn’t be any additional drivers involved to begin with. The only case I remember behavior like this occurring involved a Dell laptop dock that required drivers for its internal USB controller even on newer versions of Windows 10, and if you installed those drivers on a system that also had an old version of an application called Citrix Receiver installed, then those items would conflict in ways that could affect even the system’s built-in USB ports, not just the dock’s. Citrix Receiver uses USB redirection technology, which was apparently the source of the conflict there, and the fix was to install a newer version of that application. But that’s obviously a fairly specific case.

Again, if you haven’t used this system in years, you might find it faster to just wipe it, install the latest version of Windows 10 directly, reinstall your apps, and restore your data by mounting your backup and copying the necessary data out of it. A Windows system that’s been dormant for that long is likely going to spend quite a bit of time installing Windows updates, possibly before you can even update to Windows 10, and that’s before considering the time you’ll likely end up spending on updates to applications and drivers — all of which would come only after all of the time you’re spending on troubleshooting this issue. And even that assumes you end up solving this issue at all rather than ending up performing a clean install in the end anyway. It might be time to cut your losses rather than continuing to throw good time after bad, so to speak.