XP won't recognise new USB keyboard

[mhl]

My old PS/2 keyboard has finally expired and I have bought a USB replacement. Unfortunately none of my XP/SP3 machines will recognise it - although I have checked on each PC that USB Legacy/Keyboard support is enabled in BIOS.

I must be missing something here, but I'm d****d if I can see what

Can someone out there help please?

The new USB keyboard works fine on another box which dual boots Windows 7 and Linux.

[SuperSparks]

Does the keyboard work at any stage of the boot up process? Can you boot into the BIOS Setup, for example?

[mhl]

Nick

Yes, USB keyboard works OK in BIOS ... as I said in my first post ....

[SuperSparks]

I didn't know if you'd used this keyboard, or another PS/2 to get into the BOS . Anyway, boot into Safe Mode and see if the keyboard works there. If it does, uninstall the keyboard driver from Device Manager, then reboot.

[mhl]

I'll try your suggestion and post back, Nick. (First have to finish what I'm doing on this Linux box which now has the USB keyboard attached and then connect it to my son's XP box where it is required).

[mhl]

Nick

I'm posting this from my son's XP box with the USB keyboard successfully connected

Many thanks for the speedy and accurate solution.

One question occurs to me though - what happens if I re-connect a PS/2 keyboard now that I have uninstalled the keyboard driver ...

[SuperSparks]

It should be fine, basic kb drivers are built into Windows, so as soon as you boot back into the main OS, Windows should reinstall whatever it needs automatically.

[mhl]

Thx.

Have discovered now that the USB keyboard only seems to work in certain USB ports - but I think that is probably a hardware fault with the rather old mobo and not critical.