Yet another completely new PC problem

–New to me, anyway. Several days ago, I woke up, booted my PC and found that I was unable to enter my profile password. The keyboard is getting power, it would work in the BIOS but as soon as the GUI started, it would accept no input from the KB.

Long story short, I am now stuck with that hard drive at the end of a repair-install, on the screen where you must enter the keycode, unable to do so. I thought surely repairing the system files would take care of it.

This is XP Pro SP2 I’m talking about, BTW.

I had to install the OS on a different hard drive in order to come in here and ask for help. Keyboard worked fine on that one. I can’t understand what would lock out keyboard input like that.

Anybody got anything? I should mention that my MB only has one IDE slot, and my CD/DVD drive is on the cable too; so it’s one drive at a time. Well, I do have external bays actually. I could put the problem drive on as a slave and fix it that way; if only I knew what to do.

Thanks!

How is the keyboard connected (PS/2, USB, other)?

Sorry, should have mentioned that – it’s PS2.

Oddly enough, when I disabled “USB mouse/storage” in the BIOS, the KB wouldn’t work either. Can’t figure that one, unless they’re somehow on neighboring circuits oir something. But that seems highly unlikely. Could it be the OS or BIOS thinks it’s a USB keyboard? I’ve never had one.

Is at a usb plugged into a PS2 adapter or anything like that? Do you have a usb keyboard you can try?

Either way you are going to end up rebooting and letting the repair install try and rerun.

Shut off
Reseat PS2 Plug
plug in USB keyboard if available (leaving PS2 in place)
turn on PC
let phase2 of install try to finish.

check both keyboards for funtionality at prompt in question

No, it;'s not thru an adapter. I have several of those PS2-to-USB adapters; but what I have always wanted is one that goes the other way, so you can plug your cheesy PS2 keyboard into a USB port!

Yeah, that’s what I figure I will have to do. it’s good to have corroboration, that that’s the right angle to approach.

I’ll let you know if that is successful – my good friend has just told me he can bring me one tonight.
Oh, PS: That’s another funny thing – when I get to the prompt, “caps lock” and “num lock” (which I keep off normally) suddenly don’t work. Just to be sure, I tried turning both lights on before I got to the prompt. Then, when I reached that point, they stayed on, even when I pressed their buttons to turn them off.

Dammit, that didn’t work either – same deal, works fine in BIOS and up to the GUI kicks in. Alas, that was my best hope.

Is there any malware that might do this? I don’t see how it could be just a corrupted regular system file, because the repair install woulkd have fixed it – uh, right?

What happens if you boot in Safe Mode? If Safe Mode works, check the event logs.

See, I have a password on my profile. I can’t get into the system at all til I enter the password. …But that was before I attempted a re-install. (“leave file system intact”-type) Now I have to enter the key code for windows before the drive will boot.

So, I set the drive up externally as a slave to the hinky one I’m using right now. Hmm, event logs. A little trickier finding them in a non-system drive, but I’ll give it a shot.

ok try this

alt+f10 during the second phase of the windows load but before you get to the prompt that you are getting stuck on.

this will open a command prompt

type taskmgr and hit enter

This should open the windows task manager

click on “file” menu and select “run/newtask”

a box will open where you can type a name

type OSK and hit enter

This should launch the windows onscreen keyboard which will allow you to type in what you need to get past the screen that is stopping you.

Keep us posted…

Aha! I was wondering if there was some way to invoke the OSK. That’s in ingenius idea; but even that didn’t work.

I have a theory. There is something called a “ransom trojan.” (the English on that page is somewhat fractured, but it gets the point across.) Note the reference to “winlock.”

The night before the problems started, I had run Gmer (malware detection program) because of various little things I had noticed that were odd going on in my system. Because of all the chaos that ensued, I don’t remember exactly what those things were now, but anyway –

I must have run some other scan first, because at one point a trojan was detected in an old game I had downloaded for my little niece. I have looked through every log from that time (I have the bad drive set up in an external bay) but I can’t find any reference to it. I deleted the game.

What I did find though was the following in the Gmer log:

AttachedDevice \Driver\Kbdclass \Device\KeyboardClass0 dwlkbf.SYS (dWinlock Ctrl-Alt-Del Blocker/Kassl)
AttachedDevice \Driver\Kbdclass \Device\KeyboardClass1 dwlkbf.SYS (dWinlock Ctrl-Alt-Del Blocker/Kassl)

Now, I may be completely mistaken. But my theory is that I got one of these trojans; because I run a program called “Autorun Eater” and because I have certain services disabled (Terminal, Workstation, Remote Registry, Messenger, etc.) it wasn’t able to execute fully and what I wound up with is just the keyboard lock. Presumably, there would have been a ransom window, and if there had been, I could have gone to certain help sites and gotten the key. Instead I seem to be SOL.

That’s the theory.

… Anybody?

A big problem here is that you have attempted an upgrade reinstall, which has likely compounded your problems massively.

Right now, I’d back up your data, nuke everything apart from the data directories (move your data out of your profile area) and do a full reinstall of Windows. Or better, install to a blank HDD and copy your data from the one with the malware on it.

<looks down, shuffles feet…> Er, I couldn’t find my original windows disk … it’s here somewhere … :smack:

Ouch, soooooo many obscure old programs to go find again. I used to save the zipped installation files, but that takes up a lotta room. At least I’ve got all that NET framework stuff archived. And Double Drivers, thank god.

Thank you, Quartz.

And for heaven’s sake, update your OS to SP3 and all the subsequent security updates.
Using XP SP2 is just asking for your PC to be infected.