Keyboard died after VMware attempt

Post by **ayu** » 30 Jul 2008, 03:48

I wanted to install VMware Workstation on my Windows box. But the installation failed and it left a bunch of files on the computer, so that it couldn't start the installation again because it said that it was already installed. So, I had to start removing everything manually, and since I have done it before I thought that I might as well do it again.

Removed everything, installation still didn't wanted to start, so I thought that maybe it would work if I restarted the computer, which I did.

Now the issue emerged for real, the keyboard didn't want to work. I even tried with logging in through VNC but it just froze then. Anyone have an idea? ^^

PS: I did some googling but didn't find anything of use, I didn't, however, spend very much time on it, since I now only have one functioning computer, which is newly installed and has to be fixed a lot before normal usage.

HILFE!

Post by **bad_brain** » 30 Jul 2008, 07:04

hm, that's weird.....is it a USB keyboard? if yes, have you tried to connect via PS2 yet?

I had a similar problem caused by the tor/vidalia package, neither mouse nor keyboard were working when vidalia was set to autostart...I booted into safe mode and disabled the service via msconfig, see if this works for you, maybe there is still a startup entry for vmware..

Post by **ayu** » 30 Jul 2008, 08:52

Nope, PS2 doesn't work either. And the same shit happens when I attempt to boot into safe mode.

Is there like a registry editor of some sort that I can use with Linux? As in booting with a Linux live cd and edit the registry file on the system HDD, Might work if I remove all of the VMware entries. I might just backup my files though and reinstall

It's just that I don't like leaving problems like this and solving them with a reformat when I don't know the cause ^^

uid0 · Post by **uid0** » 30 Jul 2008, 08:55

More likely an incomplete wrapper driver was left behind for vmware and as bad_brain said is possible that there are entries calling vmware in each startup, maybe an startup entry or one of the vmware nt services

If you have a restore point you could just try that, if that's not the case, then use the vmware install cleaner and restart the system:

Code: Select all

vmware install cleaner
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?cmd=displayKC&externalId=1308

Post by **bad_brain** » 30 Jul 2008, 09:15

you can use this to edit the registry if needed:
http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/

Post by **ayu** » 30 Jul 2008, 09:25

Thanks for both of your answers ^^

@uid0: Well the cleaner would have been awesome if there was a way to login to the computer xD

@b_b: Yeah I'll give it a try. Will most likely reformat tonight though, TinyXP has given me a lot of trouble lately.

uid0 · Post by **uid0** » 30 Jul 2008, 10:14

cats wrote: @uid0: Well the cleaner would have been awesome if there was a way to login to the computer xD

Oh crap xD I though you have at least one account without password protection

You could use the boot disk of ntpasswd to remove the account password so you can logon to the system instead to edit the registry

If anything fails, you could reinstall the OS instead of reformat, it has its drawbacks however so it's up to you

Post by **ayu** » 30 Jul 2008, 10:52

Yeah, I'm trying to reset the Admin password to blank so that I can at least login and use the screen keyboard, but the reset keeps failing due to the annoying reason that it can't seem to mount the NTFS partition for writing.

Any other "boot reset pass" tools would be appreciated ^^ I REALLY want to get in and fix some stuff before I reformat, and simply transferring the files with a live CD would be a pain since I need to take some notes before I reinstall.

Post by **bad_brain** » 30 Jul 2008, 11:47

Ophcrack live CD:
http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/downloa ... ype=livecd

Post by **ayu** » 30 Jul 2008, 11:49

I managed to reset the password with the first tool now ^^ apparently I had to have a clean logfile, so I have to restart clean first... : /

Anyway I got in, removed ALL of the VMware entries with the removal tool, restarted, still nothing. Now I have access to my stuff though so I will be reinstalling it all this evening ^^

Thanks both of you, you have been a great help =)

Post by **bad_brain** » 30 Jul 2008, 12:00

np, you're welcome...

uid0 · Post by **uid0** » 30 Jul 2008, 12:12

Maybe now that you don't have any vmware related stuff it's possible that you can reinstall the keyboard drivers from the windows CD, I'll try it, uninstalling it from the device manager and then restart the system, it should prompt you to install the drivers for a new recognized device, although I'm a bit of a psyco with my system and test everything I can think off when troubleshooting so I'll just leave the idea in the air he he

Other thing that "might" help you is this:

http://www.siliconguide.com/qa/forum/messages/340.shtml

Check the Blas13 answer (response number 12), I know, that problem isn't exactly as yours (unless you're recieving a 39 code also xD) but since the system is unable to load the keyboard drivers, and no matter how you boot the system the problem continues, then is more likely the error is in the registry so Blas13's response might help you to solve it

Make a backup of the registry keys before changin anything just to be safe.

good luck