keyboard stopped working

Hi,
Running WinXP on a year old Gateway computer.
When I turned on my computer today, there was some sort of scanning going on? After it finished, my keyboard wouldn't work. The mouse worked, but not the keyboard. (usb). I couldn't sign on, so.. Thinking that the keyboard was just bad, I installed a new one (ps/2). It won't work either. I'm currently working from my "work" computer to figure this out. A few thing in the last few days that I don't know affect anything or not, but 1) Windows Defender "application failed to initialize" pops up at every startup. 2) Last time on the internet I had a 80 pop ups of the same pop up.
Tonight I did a system restore - after which "some componenets of ActiveShield are either missing or not installed properly" popped up; ran ad-aware - found 4 objects-deleted them; ran a virus scan - nothing found; Keyboard STILL not working. Keys do not work while windows is loading - can't get to BIOS.
I'e concluded that it's not the keyboards, nor the usb or ps/2 ports. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.
Thank you in Advance!
Khent

 

Did you hot-swap the keyboard? (That is, plugged the ps/2 keyboard in while the computer was running). ps/2 is not plug and play, you need to reboot the computer when you connect something to it.
The time window to access the BIOS is before windows starts loading. Are you sure you're not pressing the BIOS key too late? Maybe pressed the wrong key?
The BIOS is not windows related and does not use drivers. Keyboards not working at boot time are a much more serious problem than when they fail in windows.