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Device Manager Blank - Mouse and keyboard unresponsive

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by bad panda 2 views

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A customer brought in an XP machine that was infected with a virus (they didn't not which one.) We had supported them over the phone briefly, and due to an issue where the device manager was blank, we wanted them to bring it in. Turns out that now we aren't able to get the mouse and keyboard to work. After doing some research, I found that this a symptom of plug-n-play service being disabled due to virus or spyware activity. Restarting the PnP service can go a long way to fixing this problem. BUT...can't do it without a keyboard and mouse.
I am able to get into the BIOS and get it into safe mode,so the hardware works. BUT after Windows starts, its no go. Any suggestions?
Thanks!

6 replies

by langlier

From a 2nd PC scan for the virus and see if you can remove it. See where you are if you can remove it from there. If you can remove the virus but things are still not working then a backup and repair install of windows would be worth trying. If you can't remove the virus then a backup, full format is likely going to be necessary.

by bad panda

I do have full access to the hdd and all data, and the virus itself is gone. Windows acts fine...it's just that darn service. What about a command line entry that would start the service POST windows (i.e. Repair Windows screen)?

by bad panda

Its USB. This is one of Dell's Dimension models that do not have PS2 capability. That was the first thing I checked...but I don't know if even that would have solved the problem.

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