Odd input problem

[Pi rules]

System specs:
XP Home & Vista RC1, 2x512 MB Corsair, Sapphire X1300 PRO, Pentium D 930, wireless keyboard/mouse combo (USB keyboard w/ USB to PS2 adapter & PS2 mouse)

I'm having a bit of a strange problem with my computer that I can't pinpoint. Explorer.exe kept freezing after login (every profile), so I used System Restore, which didn't help, so I went back to the current restore point. Then, I tried Fix-it utilities' checkpoint manager to go farther back, which was too far and I didn't want to reinstall all the drivers and reinstall half of my apps (I learned my lesson). I went back to the current restore point, then restarted to find that I could not login.

The mouse would move, so I would click on my username, but when I started typing, the mouse froze and nothing I typed appeared on the screen. Last Known Good Configuration didn't work.

I started Vista to see if it was XP or hardware, and it worked fine.

So, I started a Repair on XP. However, the same problem happened when I had to type in my Product Key. I tried plugging in the keyboard into a USB port, but that didn't work. A different keyboard and mouse also didn't work. After a few restarts (to try different keyboards & mouses/mice), there would only be a black screen with an immovable cursor. So, I tried to restart the Repair from the XP CD, but I got a 0x0A BSOD and tried again, and it went slowly, but had the same black screen & cursor problem.

I'm just about out of ideas. What I'll probably end up doing is shrinking my largest partition and doing a clean install on it, but I'm not entirely sure it will work. Does anybody have any ideas that I should try? Could it be the motherboard? For a joke, I might try reseating the RAM, but I'm not sure if it would help. Hopefully we'll get even more :snow: (already 7") and have a snow day tomorrow, but the plows & salt trucks are always very quick.

[mylanta]

That has to be one of the strangest things I have ever read, and you are doing exactly what I would do next...it's all you can do PI.

[dbarrow]

Same hardware and Vista works but XP won't?
Sounds like a reg hive is blown, likely SYSTEM.

It may be too late and damage too severe but...
XP repair install skips over many things already installed so as not to overwrite them like a clean install.

Before doing wipe and load, try booting from XP cd to repair console and copy the reg backups from the repair folder to the system32\config as has been detailed numerous times in posts here.

[Pi rules]

Snow day today. :) At first it was only a 2 hour delay, but right before I was going to leave my mom watched the news again and it said that school is canceled. It's hard to tell exactly how much snow we have due to drifting, but I think there is more than 1 foot.
That has to be one of the strangest things I have ever read
Those odd problems are the only ones I get and can't solve... Why can't I get a normal problem? ;)

Same hardware and Vista works but XP won't?
Yes. Same or different hardware.

Before doing wipe and load, try booting from XP cd to repair console and copy the reg backups from the repair folder to the system32\config as has been detailed numerous times in posts here.
Do you mean this (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545/)?

Thanks! :wave:

[dbarrow]

Yes... boot from XP install cd, r for Repair Console, logon.
COPY %\Windows\repair System,Security,SAM,software files to %\Windows\System32\config

[Pi rules]

Just an update - the fix did not work, so I shrunk my largest partition to make room for a new XP Partition and installed XP on it. So far, everything is working. I had to take ownership, but didn't have to restart (just create a DWORD value in HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot\Opt ion called "OptionValue" and set it at 1 while you need the Security tab. Change it to 0 after you're done)

That problem still makes me curious. There must be some pretty bad corruption in the system files on that partition. When I get some extra time I think I'll give it another shot.

Everything is working well now that I created a new XP partition. Thanks for the help, guys! :wave: