Can't boot

[bpickartz]

I was doing some clean up today (deleting old files, defragging, scheduling scandisk). Scandisk ran, but the pc never fully booted. I restarted and tried to get into safe mode. It recognizes the keyboard at that point because it does go to the "choice" screen. But I can't arrow up to get to safe mode or to last known good configuration (which has saved me more than once). It just times out and goes into scandisk again. I tried f10 and f11 and f2 ... can't get to the bios or boot in any form.

It just seems to ignore the keyboard.

Help! I'm totally lost here and need the pc back online.

Any help greatly appreciated!

 

[nhasian]

if you have a usb keyboard sometimes the bios will not recognize it. do you have a ps/2 keyboard you can try temporarily? there may be a setting in the bios to always use usb keyboard.

 

[bpickartz]

Thanks much for the quick answer rhasian.

I'm sure I have one somewhere. I'll give that a try. I tried a second keyboard, but it was a usb. I'll dig through my component "boneyard" and try to find a ps/2 keyboard. Would there be a reason that it accepts the F8, but not the arrows once it gets to the screen where I select how to boot?

 

[bpickartz]

if you have a usb keyboard sometimes the bios will not recognize it. do you have a ps/2 keyboard you can try temporarily? there may be a setting in the bios to always use usb keyboard.

Thanks again. This did work. I'm back online with the pc (with the ps/2 keyboard). Should I now go into the bios to look for the setting to again accept a usb keyboard? Your advice was a lifesaver!

 

[bpickartz]

Best answer selected by bpickartz.