Here I go again.

OK boys and girls here's my latest Win blues.

There is an old PIII Fujitsu Primergy server at my school. The OS is Win 2000NT Advance Server. My problem is this.

When I try to boot it up all goes OK until the point of doing the ctrl+alt+del keys. The PS/2 keyboard then does not work. I've tried other keyboards including USB and nothing works. I can get into the bios using the PS/2 keyboard but again after booting the system when I need to get to the log in screen. The keys don't work. How can I get this work? I guess the only other thing to do is just do a clean instal of another OS. The problem is that the English version disc I have is not readable. It won't try to boot from it. I have change the boot order to CD first but still it won't read.

But again that's not a biggy. Just wondering why the keyboard works in the beginning but not when I need to the log in?

Not really "latest" Win blues, more like 10 years old Win blues :)
But to be helpful:

1. Have you tried resetting BIOS to factory defaults
2. Ensure that Plug and Play is set to OFF?
3. Have you applied the "latest" Service Pack for NT?
4. Have you set USB controller to Legacy Mode?
5. Have you tried manually assigning IRQ to PS2 controller?

Let me know how you go and I will see if I can offer further assistance.

Kind Regards
EH

At this point, I'm wondering if it needs to be connected to the network? It was originally set up to be always on and running at our school. But since we have new systems this was something the supplying company didn't want to take back. Along with the other tower which runs Win98 on it. These were the main towers that the teachers used for the PC room. I'm just thinking of really just removing the old drives and putting in either a blank one to install the os later or a drive that has a working os on it. I just wanted to see if the server tower would have anything programs worth keeping for the kids to use.

The whole ideal is to have an English running system that the Japanese kids could play around with and learn without the teachers worring about them breaking or messing up the new PCs. Plus with it being in English they could see how what they are doing is not that much different from they are doing now in Japanese.

Will let you know more after I go back to that school. We have a holiday this week that falls right on the day I would go. So it'll be next week before I can get back there again.

Solo

Have you considered Virtual Environment as a place where to setup your playground for kids?

No I had not thought about it at all.

Well tried every trick you listed and no dice on getting past the ctrl+alt+del screen. So I am just going to get another HD and then see if I can check the old drive for any useful apps.

I just don't get it why the keyboard works for checking the bios but once it trys to load the OS it goes dead??

Thanks again for your help there, Ebon-Hawk.

Sure thing,
I will give it some more thought and see if anything comes up.
Do you want to keep this thread open?

did it ever work or it just stopped working suddenly?

I'd like to keep it open for a little longer. I still have some time before I'll switch the drives. At another school. There is the same ES200 Fujitsu Primergy server. It has no keyboard and bla, bla, bla. So what I did was opened the case and pulled the drives from it. I found out there are two drives inside. Same 30GB in size. So that would mean that they are paired. I could just see if these drives would boot up at the school I want to use at.
Anywho, I have extra drives plus more memory.

Lugum, the systems were working fine. Granted there was a long period of collecting dust before I found out that the old towers were still there. The Win98 tower has no issues at all and boots up fine. Plus it's a lot easier to open the case to than the server tower. But it uses for ram the PC800 chips. I'll be limited in how much ram I'll be able to upgrade it to. The ES200 server uses the PC100 & PC133 chips. So I have tons of those to use.

If I can't get a better idea as to what to do with the now inside OS for the server, I'm simply going to yank the drives and put the Win98 in just to test the PS/2 port for the keyboard. Since I know the Win98 tower does work and I have used the 2 PS/2 keyboards on it that might be my only option.

Solo

Could you get into safe mode?

It sounds like a driver conflict or an IRQ conflict so . . . if you can't remote in and your install disk is non-readable . . . I only have a couple of suggestions (sorry if they have already been made as I didn't re-read the thread)

I would pull all non-essential cards from the box i.e. modem, sound, etc etc. It might be one of the card drivers that is conflicting with the keyboard driver. Not unusual for NT / Windows 2000. Try a boot with and without the mouse plugged in.

Service packs often killed drivers back in the day so the failure may be the result of adding a service pack that was not compatible with the keyboard drivers, especially if the installed keyboard driver is for a multimedia keyboard.

As a last resort, if you have a stand alone USB card laying around, I would try slipping that in and connecting the keyboard and mouse to it rather than the on-board PS/2 or USB sockets. Chances are Win 2000 won't recognize the USB card but . . . it could happen . . . =)

Edit: I would unplug any CD/DVD drives / printers as well. Also pull the NIC card(s) since you don't need them at the moment.

Crap. I thought this was a contest and I was gonna "Win" an NT Server problem... :(

I am trying to remember if you tried booting this up in a Linux based live disk and what were the results. If no, try www.partedmagic.com get the ISO and boot it up.

Before you boot into Windows, the keyboard is under BIOS control. After Windows starts up, the Windows driver takes over. This sort of thing is typically caused by Windows not being able to find the keyboard.

With Windows running, try unplugging the keyboard and plugging it back in. That's always the first thing I try with unrecognized peripherals.

The other possibility, and this is a real possibility with really old boxes like that, is that the CMOS battery has failed. This causes the BIOS to lose all its settings. Usually, you would get a warning during boot if this has happened. Watch the POST screen carefully while you are powering the server up.

If you can get into the BIOS with the keyboard, check things like whether "USB keyboard" or the PS/2 keyboard port are enabled. You may also need "Legacy USB" enabled.

The box wasn't by any chance set up for headless operation, was it? If so that should open up new possibilities for repair.