I had 2 hard drives in my desktop. One was for the OS and the other was for everything else. Recently, the drive with the OS (XP Professional) crashed. So, I bought a new drive and set out to replace it today.
All was going well and the installation of XP seemed to go off without a hitch. However, when the computer booted, I had no use of my USB mouse. The pointer doesn’t even show up on the screen. I have to assume that I missed something but I don’t know what I may have done wrong.
Any ideas?
You should have basic USB mouse functionality during installation unless…
Are you using one of the stranger ilks of mice? Like some Logitech six-button touch-sense mouse? Many mice brands these days require a driver installation and might not work when windows hasn’t been fully updated with drivers. See if you can borrow a generic Microsoft or Dell mouse from someone.
Check that it hasn’t been disabled in the BIOS. It happens even if only rarely.
I’d be looking for a loose connection somewhere, possibly even inside the case.
Does the mouse have a battery?
Is the mouse still securely plugged into a USB port, and is the USB port securely plugged into the motherboard? One of those two connections may have gotten dislodged while you were removing the old hard drive or installing the new one.
Do you have any other USB devices connected? And if so, do they work?
If not, check in your device manager and make sure the drivers for your USB controller installed correctly. I had this happen to me once, when the USB controller on my motherboard was apparently whacked out.
After much searching I think that the USB controller is messed up. That will be the first thing I fix once I find the discs and stuff I put away after I built the computer. I’ll post an update in the morning.
Thanks