Does this sound like a virus or file corruption?

[3800Fan]

I just recently dusted off an old Dell Dimension B110. It was originally purchased by my mother whom left it when she moved out of state then given to my younger cousins who fought over it and thus it was returned to me. It been sitting collecting dust for probably 5 years now. I got it all hooked up just to play an N64 emulator and now the USB ports seem to be acting up. The mouse and keyboard aren't recognized despite showing that they are powered on, and the flash drives don't light up when plugged in. I searched online and was able to get them to work only if entered BIOS. After going to the home screen the keyboard and mouse stop working. (Ver. A00 and XP Home Edition if that helps) I was able to get the USB port to work for the flash drives by changing BIOS settings. I also found the OS install disc and used BIOS to ensure that the CD ROM drive boots up upon startup. Now when I get into the home screen, I'm the bottom left corner I get messages showing the keyboard, mouse and USB drive are all recognized hardwise wise but they still do not respond with the exception of the usb flash drives which is useless without an input to access them. I can't even into cmd prompt in safe mode to access the cd rom drive. Odd thing is years ago I remember having to drop this thing off at staples to key network drivers and I believe the underlying issue is without internet I can't download the drivers for all the recognized hardware. (I downloaded the important ones on my flash drive but once again can't access them) However back then the input hardware still worked fine. Any idea on how to install those without another expensive trip to the tech geeks?

 

[97prizm]

Sounds like a hardware issue. Could be a virus. I'd use your regular computer and burn a Linux Live disk and run it. I did this for a co-worker a couple years back and it saved her computer from having to be wiped completely. Howtogeek has a great article on how to do this. By the way are the keyboards mouse etc original? Couldcbe a driver issue.

 

[3800Fan]

No they aren't original but they work on the pre boot screens such as bios, safe mode selection etc etc. I had no issue navigating BIOS with the keyboard but as soon as I get past the welcome/loading screen the only thing recognized is the flash drive even after using the rear ports and rebooting after every port switch. The only change is that now the hardware wizard recognizes the keyboard and mouse need drivers but there's no way to download them with no network drivers. I was hoping the "boot from CD" BIOS option would boot me right into a complete system install, but the drive fires up for a few seconds then nothing. I'd assume that means there's no CDRW driver either.

 

[eljefino]

In the bad old days when you did a CD install there was a point where you could add a SCSI driver from the floppy disk. Shoot me now if I have to do that again! In seriousness can you download a bunch of the drivers you think you need and burn them to a CD on another computer? That should have native windows support. Dell is pretty good with their website and your entering your machine's support code.

 

[BigD1]

Originally Posted by eljefino

In the bad old days when you did a CD install there was a point where you could add a SCSI driver from the floppy disk. Shoot me now if I have to do that again! In seriousness can you download a bunch of the drivers you think you need and burn them to a CD on another computer? That should have native windows support. Dell is pretty good with their website and your entering your machine's support code.

That answer above. Use an old keyboard/mouse with PS/2 connector, or buy an USB female to PS/2 adapter. Then plug into the PS/2 port/s, and see if it is working now. Should work with PS/2.

 

[Subdued]

Not a hardware issue or a virus, definitely a driver issue. windows XP was "ok" when it came to identifying HID, but more recent stuff will likely be an issue for it.

 

[3800Fan]

Got the usb to ps2 adapters today and got the entire OS reinstalled. Both mouse and keyboard are working, just trying to figure out how to get the computer to recognize my old N64 controller with usb setup.

 

[3800Fan]

Got all the issues ironed out with the drivers and adapters, now just waiting on an old geforce 6200 to be delivered tomorrow so I can get back into steam...ƒ I think my cousins deleted registry files because the original OS install can't be overwritten or deleted and still has no drivers, while the new OS install needed all buggy drivers deleted and reinstalled. The integrated graphics on this fossil isn't even enough to run the emulator without mayor stuttering.