[skippee]

For several months my old HP computer (6-7 years old) has been booting up with the check disc to start. Hit any key to bypass.........I think you know what I mean. Anyway......futile attempts would not make it go away. I'm thinking my hard drive is failing. Now.....just recently........I lost communications with the wireless connection. The adapter is working because it does find wireless sources but cannot connect to them. All configurations are correct as I checked and rechecked. I have a third computer (a laptop) that is connected to the network and is still working properly. Here's the kicker. I tried to reinstall windows and succeeded........that didn't help the situation. My last hope was to format. Now.........I have a wireless keyboard and mouse connected to this HP working just fine. Now..........I put the format disc in and reboot. I get the Hewlett Packard format screen which tells me to press any key to continue. My wireless keyboard is not responding. Ok.......so I disconnect the wireless and hook up the wire keyboard and mouse. It works so I reboot to format again. Once I get the the HP format screen I try to press any key and nothing. Now I'm figuring I'm having a problem with my hardware and my usb ports will not respond. My opinion is a hardware problem............can anyone else figure this one out? I'm thinking about trashing it and getting a cheapie since it is mainly used for wifey to check her mail. Oh.........and to shop for new clothe.

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for USB to work prior to windows loading, your motherboard must support legacy usb devices

Many do, but not all are enabled by default. Obviously, if you can enter bios with the usb keyboard, this is not the issue (attempt to do so)

Next, the HP format screen--it is very difficult to figure out what HP is doing from weeks to week. I doubt you have a real windows disk, and likely have some sort of recovery disk...these often use linux or some proprietary boot scheme to load the windows image...I strongly suspect that this pre-OS does not support USB.

Borrow a ps2 keyboard from someone and check with that

[gerryf]

for USB to work prior to windows loading, your motherboard must support legacy usb devices

Many do, but not all are enabled by default. Obviously, if you can enter bios with the usb keyboard, this is not the issue (attempt to do so)

Next, the HP format screen--it is very difficult to figure out what HP is doing from weeks to week. I doubt you have a real windows disk, and likely have some sort of recovery disk...these often use linux or some proprietary boot scheme to load the windows image...I strongly suspect that this pre-OS does not support USB.

Borrow a ps2 keyboard from someone and check with that

[skippee]

Borrow a ps2 keyboard from someone and check with that

I'm sorry to say that that did not work. I'm thinking about deleting my partitions and seeing if that will work.