XP wont start please help ?

1jacks64

When I turn on my computer xp wont start. All I get is a black screen which says that i am able to choose safe mode and a few other options. Unfortunately I am unable to move the cursor up and down with the keyboard arrows to select the other options.

I press the keyboard arrows and nothing happens even though the numb lock and cap lock lights light up so there is power getting to the keyboard. I have also tried pressing F8 and r buttons with the XP disk in the drive to try and access the recovery mode and nothing still happens. Please help me.

fgaughan

Have you tried the tab key?

chaosfoz666

OK I bet you have a USB keyboard. You need to borrow an old style keyboard ps/2 style and this should work.

There are adaptors out there too!

missile

Can you not sort the problem in safe mode and do system recover? This should be the highlighted option by default.

Alternatively, put your back-up or XP disk in the drive and configure to boot from disk, do a repair windows. If that doesn't work re-install

paul_h

chaosfoz666 wrote:

OK I bet you have a USB keyboard. You need to borrow an old style keyboard ps/2 style and this should work.

There are adaptors out there too!

It's very likely that chaosfoz666 is right.

When you do borrow a ps/2 keyboard or adaptor, make sure you go into the BIOS settings (usually by pressing DELETE on boot-up) and enable USB keyboard support. This will make sure that your keyboard will still work if you get into this situation again.

HTH;)

1jacks64

The tab key isn't working either but I have noticed that the num lock caps lock and scroll lock all light up together at the same time and stay on for a few minutes. I have also noticed that sometimes even though the num lock and caps locks lights are on the machine says that the keyboard is not connected on boot up and will not allow the system to run any further.

The tab key does not move the cursor and it is stuck on the option selected start windows normally so am unable to select safe mode. I will try what you have suggested regarding different keyboards. I am just wondering what could cause this to happen. Does anyone know what causes this?