XP Pro - No USB Keyboard or Mouse

[Mike McCall]

FYI regarding XP and cloning and no keyboard and/or mouse once the GUI loads......I've run into that with XP in the past, but when we imaged a fleet of Lenovo ThinkCentre desktops. The keyboard used for the image build built was different than the keyboards used at the clients desks. Since we prepped the image with a password for the Administrator account, we couldn't get to desktop to allow plug 'n play to load it. So had to bring the keyboard we used at our office in building the image, to our clients office....plug it in to each computer one by one to get to log in and get to desktop and then swap keyboards and allow plug 'n play to load the driver for their keyboard.

USUALLY plug 'n play will load peripherals like HIDs just fine before needing to log into desktop....if you just sit and wait long enough. BUT...chalk it up to some weird combo of particular kb driver and particular chipset. Or perhaps the BIOS of the rig used for the initial image was not set for plug 'n play OS.

Anyways..just thought I'd note it here....happens to brands other than Dell.

Back in the day Dell made a habit of obfuscating the drivers for their builds so that it was nearly impossible to repair or upgrade an installation. The comments of others about this being a common Dell thing may be a hold-over from that, as well as my own. My Google research brought up several posts about it being an XP issue not related to Dell specifically.

In this case the client is a system admin who is having me do some really basic work. He's one who doesn't communicate well, and I have come to understand that he considers me barely qualified to turn a computer on. I'm not in a position to burn a bridge or turn down the work, even at $15hr. Since this ran longer than anticipated due to the difficulty with the keyboard/mouse he wasn't pleased with what I billed him. So, I finished the last system refresh and wiping a few drives for the $300 he already paid. This should have been a flat fee project rather than per hour, but that was never discussed. Right now, it's the only work I can get.

Now, I have a drive that failed a dBan wipe and can't be seen when I connect it via a usb adapter. There are no partitions, and apparently no MBR. Just something else that will take more time and make me look more incompetent to him. Ah, well. That's how it goes sometimes. I'll get him taken care of and things will move on from there.

 

[NJW]

Just something else that will take more time and make me look more incompetent to him.

lol. You can't beat the line, "That will be much cheaper if I take it back to the workshop." Hide all that Googling!

 

[AndyM]

I should have said, You could also try SIW, which I've found very good recovering passwords...and license keys.

Been an avid fan of SIW for years. Got the Tech license when it was available on a one time purchase, and all updates free for life.

Anyway... Mike... SIW will allow you to get the keys from the Windows Hive if you slave the drive the drive to your main PC. So just take it out of the Dell, attach it to your Win 8.1 rig via USB or whatever, then run SIW.

1. Select Software --> Remote Licenses --> From Hive
2. Load the Hive File (C:\windows\system32\config\system for Windows NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008/Windows 7/Windows 8) from the dead Windows directory

Read more: http://www.gtopala.com/siw/software.php

Free version (I think) can be downloaded from:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/siw_(system_info).html

Beta 64Bit version (Free at current time)
http://www.gtopala.com/siw/beta.php

All info available at:
http://www.gtopala.com

Andy

 

[Mike McCall]

lol. You can't beat the line, "That will be much cheaper if I take it back to the workshop." Hide all that Googling!

I have had the systems at my "shop" all along, fortunately. Had I been on site he may have not been able to get it done any faster himself. Who knows? At least he would have understood the problem. As it is, I'm not sure that he does. Either way, he wasn't impressed, and it only served to confirm his thinking.

In his defense, if I was working with an unknown quantity (me), I might let them prove themselves to me. He doesn't know me. We weren't friends beforehand, so he doesn't know anything about me. It's just been a long time since I've had to prove myself to someone. I don't blame him, it's just awkward.

 

[Mike McCall]

Been an avid fan of SIW for years. Got the Tech license when it was available on a one time purchase, and all updates free for life.

Anyway... Mike... SIW will allow you to get the keys from the Windows Hive if you slave the drive the drive to your main PC. So just take it out of the Dell, attach it to your Win 8.1 rig via USB or whatever, then run SIW.

1. Select Software --> Remote Licenses --> From Hive
2. Load the Hive File (C:\windows\system32\config\system for Windows NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008/Windows 7/Windows 8) from the dead Windows directory

Read more: http://www.gtopala.com/siw/software.php

Free version (I think) can be downloaded from:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/siw_(system_info).html

Beta 64Bit version (Free at current time)
http://www.gtopala.com/siw/beta.php

All info available at:
http://www.gtopala.com

Andy

Yeah, I'll give it another look. When I tried it, my systems locked up so I moved on to something else. I agree that it's worth looking closer at.