Bad USB port/keyboard keeps Windows from installing???

Ordered new parts online to build a new system for my girlfriend. (Nearly all new parts -- plan to use old keyboard, mouse and LCD display from her old system as it all seems to be fine.) Everything had arrived by last Monday and I had it all assembled and ready to power on that evening. System posted on first try and I began the install of WinXP Home with SP2. Just at the point that the "text" portion of the install displayed the "Setup is starting Windows" message (after all the "loading drivers" messages) the screen immediately went black and the system rebooted.

Over the last five days I tried installing to a different hard drive (known to be good), tried installing Win98 SE instead of XP, cleared the CMOS and started over, ran memory and hard drive diagnostic software, also used partitoning software to see if I could find any problems. Reformatted and repartitioned the hard drive to wipe it clean again and again. Used fixmbr. On and on, with no success -- no matter what, I couldn't get either WinXP Home/SP2 or Win98 SE to install. Furthermore each install either rebooted (WinXP) or hung (Win98) at the point where the install routine tries to boot Windows from the hard drive the first time, but there were no other error messages or indications of problems before that during each install -- except that the drive light sometimes flickered during the text portion of the install and sometimes it didn't. But recabling the drive and checking the mb connections for the drive light didn't seem to make any difference.

Did a lot of poking around on hardware mfg's forums, troubleshooter websites, and here at MG too of course. And then last night (5th day of working on this new build!), got an error -- "No keyboard detected". Shut down the system and removed the keyboard, which is the keyboard I use on my own homebuilt system -- a Belkin USB natural style keyboard. Went to the storage cupboard and dug out an old cheap PS/2keyboard and plugged it in. Booted up and, not really expecting it to make any difference, inserted the WinXP install CD and...shazaaammm! The install proceeded without a hitch and soon I found myself at the Windows Desktop on my girlfriend's new PC!

I plugged a flash drive into a USB port to move a few drivers over I needed for the new system and then powered down. I started it back up a few minutes later and...damn! It posted fine, but I got an error message right after the post beep -- something about "Boot order has changed...please check BIOS."

I realized I'd left the flash drive in one of the USB ports, so I shut down, removed the flash drive and turned the system on again..and it booted right up to the desktop with no problems!

As far as I can figure out, one or more of the rear USB connectors on the motherboard must have a short of some sort. Really strange thing is that I unplugged and plugged in that darn keyboard into the rear USB ports multiple times a day for the past 5 days and didn't see any error messages about "missing keyboard" until the one last night, nor did I have any problems using the keyboard to make menu selections while running, for example, the WD Data Lifeguard Tools, partitioning software, etc. Yet time after time the system either rebooted at the same point in the install (in the case of WinXP) or hung at the same point during the install (in the case of Win98 SE). Once I got rid of the USB keyboard (and kept the rear USB ports empty during rebooting/booting up) I've had no problems!

Has anyone else experienced a similar problem with defective USB ports keeping a Windows 98 or XP install from completing??? Can anyone explain to me how this happens? I mean, how is it that a USB keyboard can to all appearances be working fine and yet, because it's plugged into an improperly grounded (or otherwise partially defective) USB port it prevents, at exactly the same point, a Windows install from completing???

I'd appreciate any firm info on this topic -- web links, computer magazine articles, or computer maintenance troubleshooting books that detail this sort of problem.

Or have I misunderstood what happened and there's another explanation?

 

But were you able to actually use the USB keyboard as I was? It would have made more sense to me if the keyboard hadn't worked at all, but it seemed to work fine -- just interfered somehow with the installation completing. I'd appreciate some more detail if you can explain exactly how the keyboard could work and yet prevent the install from completing!

 

Attn: Moderators of Major Geeks -- hope it's OK that I started this new thread summarizing my USB related problem with a new system build. I actually began posting on an old thread here (didn't notice the date when I first chimed in):

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=100209

Then, once I sort of figured out what was going on and couldn't find anything very similar by searching the forums here I thought it might be helpful to post a summary in a new thread with a subject line that would make it easy for someone with a similar problem to find. If you feel this post would be better located in the above thread it won't bother me if you wish to move it there.

(Not that you need my permission, just saying..what the heck am I saying??? *L* Mostly really saying I appreciate the work you guys do and know it must be a lot of headaches and hope I'm not adding to them by starting a new thread that really continues from an older thread!)

 

OK, thanks for that additonal info Tim. Really hope someone sees this who knows the hardware top to bottom and can explain exactly what happens as I find it quite interesting and puzzling.

 

I had a similar problem with my computer about seven months ago, woke up and keyboard and mouse not working? Okay, computer two years old keyboard dirty, what the heck went and got a wireless keyboard & mouse, that could be plugged into either the PS2 port or the USB, loaded new drivers and plugged it into the USB port instead of the PS2 as the old one was, and VOILA!! It worked. Being the curious chap I am, I plugged in the new keyboard into the PS2 and dang if it didn’t work as well. There were/are some known issues with PS2 and originally I thought that might have been the prob as I couldn’t see both the keyboard and mouse failing right. Well I then hooked up my old keyboard and mouse and I’ll be d*mned if it didn’t work as well. Both continue to work just fine.

Best I have been able to figure is either some read problem of boot file on drivers, loose connection (wiggled all connectors to try to duplicate but Nada), or there really are Gremlins in there. Your pick, but please post back if you find the answer as I am curious too.

 

Thanks for that info BCGray. Don't doubt that there really are gremlins in there!

Tim, if you're still keeping an eye on this thread...I'm wondering it there's legitimate reason to think the rear USB ports on my motherboard are defective or is this something that would happen with some (or all?) USB keyboards and not because of any defect in the USB ports on the motherboard?

I'm suspicious of the rear USB ports on this new motherboard because when I left that USB flash drive plugged in and then booted up I got an error message, but as soon as I removed it and rebooted, everything was hunky-dory again.

Can anyone tell me...do I have good reason to request an RMA on the motherboard or is it really just something to do with USB characteristics that makes a USB keyboard "iffy" to use during a Windows install and doesn't necessarily mean there's anything really wrong with the USB ports?

 

No need to roll in SP2 as this was a recent purchase of WinXP Home which had that service pack already integrated into it.

I did look at my device boot order a number of times while trying to resolve my problem -- pretty much kept it at 1) CD-ROM, 2) hard drive, 3) floppy. But there was also 4) Other (or maybe "Other devices") which I suppose might include devices plugged into USB as my flash drive was. It will be easy enough to leave the flash drive in a USB port, turn on the system and then check the BIOS to see if the flash drive is listed in some fashion.

The motherboard manual says that while legacy USB keyboard support defaults to "Disabled," if you need to use a USB keyboard to install Windows, then change the USB keyboard setting to "Enabled". But it seems to me there ought to be a warning that attempting to use a USB keyboard on some systems may prevent the installation of Windows from succeeding and it will be necessary to use a PS/2 keyboard on such systems. But there's no mention of any such issue -- not in the MS installation instructions for XP Home, nor in the motherboard manual which says, in effect, if you need to use a USB keyboard to install Windows, go ahead and enable USB support in the BIOS and use the USB keyboard.

I've used the same USB keyboard that caused a failed install in the new system to install XP in another system without a hitch. So what exactly is it that prevents such a setup from completing a successful Windows install sometimes?

Apparently when I tried to use my USB keyboard to install XP in the new system little or nothing got written to the hard drive during the text portion of the XP installation routine. So when setup attempted to boot Windows from the IDE hard drive to complete the installation there was nothing there to boot from.

But the hard drive isn't a USB device, so why should it matter whether I'm using a USB keyboard or not? I mean if the USB keyboard works well enough so I can use it to set and confirm BIOS settings/changes, run non-Windows software (partitioning software, Data Lifeguard Tools, etc), what is it about the USB keyboard that can interfere with or outright prevent the system from copying files from the IDE DVD/CD drive to the IDE hard drive???

It would make more sense to me if I'd tried to use the USB keyboard and everytime I booted up I'd gotten the "No keyboard detected" message or if I'd typed one character and it had registered as another character or not been "seen" by the BIOS (or Windows setup) at all. But this clearly wasn't what happened.

Actually, now that I think about it, during the Windows XP install I wasn't using the keyboard at all. It was plugged in, but I didn't need to type anything at all during the text portion of the install. The XP CD autoboots, the "Setup is examining your system" message appears, then setup copies a bunch of hardware drivers to the hard drive as well as other files needed to prepare the hard drive as a boot device (though apparently setup didn't actually manage to do that), and then the message "Setup is starting Windows" just flashed on the screen and then the monitor went dark and the system rebooted. Then the system booted from the CD again and the install started all over from the beginning (or, actually, if I didn't hit a key to confirm I wanted to boot from the CD drive, the system would report "No boot device" and just hang there).

So even though I typed nothing on the keyboard, if I used a USB keyboard little or nothing gets copied to the hard drive, but if I used a PS/2 keyboard everything worked fine and the setup routine was able to boot the hard drive and finish the installation. What????

Can anyone tell me how simply having a USB keyboard plugged into the system can prevent the Windows XP setup routine from copying files from an IDE/ATAPI device (DVD drive) to an IDE hard drive?