Blue screen of death :(

[*Cinderella* 10]

So the F11 and F2 options are both working, and you can go into setup and effect changes? Can I suggest you do that, and set the CD / DVD drive as the 1st Boot Device.

[tis me 10]

go into bios and set boot sequence to cd rom first.Your keyboard will work in bios.

reboot and windows will load from the cd rom loading keyboard drives as it does it.

If the usb in bios option is turned to off then you will need a standard ps2 type keyboard to enable usb in the bios option to on.

It is very unlikely you will save windows and my guess is a fresh install is your only option.

There is some possiblility that there is some hardware failure that has caused the problem in the first place.

 

bios is normally gained by pressing the del key or one of the f keys (this will be displayed on screen) as soon as the bios screens show.you can press the pause key to pause while you read the screens.

[just_words 10]

By basic, I mean one that isn't wireless.

 

(Smart ass )

 

Hmmm, touchy, no I wasn't being facetious, just being precise, questions have been asked here, which have had to be clarified because of your lack of precision at explaining the actual situation. Once again, i'm not being off!

 

I'd say either adjust your BIOS and try to boot in using recovery... then:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545/

Or download a live linux distro and use that to amend windows, or just use it to backup and do a reinstall.

[igm1 10]

I've done that, but when it gets to the screen 'Press any key to boot from CD', my keyboard doesn't work, so it'll try to load windows normally.

[just_words 10]

Oh BTW, if the usb driver has been corrupted, the ps2 driver might still work!

[igm1 10]

Oh BTW, if the usb driver has been corrupted, the ps2 driver might still work!

 

Great idea!

 

Attempting repair with windows disk now.

[*Cinderella* 10]

Could your RAM have failed? I find it difficult to see how the keyboard can be fully functional inside the BIOS setup menu, but cease to be so as soon as it comes to booting up.

 

Just words is right, if you can access a PS/2 keyboard you should certainly try it.

[igm1 10]

Success, I managed to restore it to a previous point. Thanks a million to everyone who replied, especially cinderella and just words.

 

Although surely this could happen again....?

 

Any idea what I could do to prevent that? Aside from getting rid of vista of course.

[*Cinderella* 10]

I'm a bit out of phase with your posts, sorry.

 

If a PS/2 keyboard is letting you boot off a CD, it'll probably also let you select the 'last known good configuration' option. I'd try that first, and secondly go in in safe mode and do a system restore, before using your windows disk itself. How much data is on the computer which is not backed up and which you can't afford to lose?

[*Cinderella* 10]

Still out of phase, but glad we got there.

[igm1 10]

I'm a bit out of phase with your posts, sorry.

 

If a PS/2 keyboard is letting you boot off a CD, it'll probably also let you select the 'last known good configuration' option. I'd try that first, and secondly go in in safe mode and do a system restore, before using your windows disk itself. How much data is on the computer which is not backed up and which you can't afford to lose?

 

Everything that I can't afford to lose is backed it, so it wouldn't have been the end of the world....just a pain in the arse!

[just_words 10]

Success, I managed to restore it to a previous point. Thanks a million to everyone who replied, especially cinderella and just words.

 

Although surely this could happen again....?

 

Any idea what I could do to prevent that? Aside from getting rid of vista of course.

 

Spend an hour (at the point when you don't need to (less stress)) learning some linux basics, then when you need to you've always got that method... How could it hurt?