Desktop PC Keyboard help required

[HopeEternal]

I have an old Compaq Desktop PC which I only really use about once a year now. (It has 10 years of tax returns and worksheets on it.) It's original keyboard succumbed to a spilled glass of wine several years ago and was replaced with a Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse.

I dug it all out and set it up yesterday. At first neither the mouse nor the keyboard would work. I replaced the batteries in both and the mouse now works fine but the keyboard still doesn't do anything.

I dug out another ancient Gateway keyboard with a PS2 (??) connection. It didn't work either. DH then dug out his old HP keyboard with a USB connection. No go.

Working on the theory that the old keyboards were just past it, today I bought a Tesco value keyboard with a USB connection. It doesn't want to play either.

My BIG problem is that without a working keyboard I can't log on to the PC. I really need to copy last year's tax worksheets for both DH and myself so I can get this year's returns filed. (Yes, I know...)

Does anyone have any idea why no keyboard will work and, if so, what I can do about it?

I'm getting desperate...

Can you use the on screen keyboard?

Thanks, usualsuspect but there is no on screen keyboard.

All is not lost though. I got through to a friend who talked about drivers not loading in the right order and USB somethings...

Anyway, the solution was to unplug the wireless transmitter from the USB slot, plug in the old PS2 connection keyboard, reboot the computer and then use the Tab key to get to my login box. That worked and once I got to the desktop I was able to add the wireless transmitter and mouse back into the configuration.

I will not be turning the PC off again until I've a) copied all last year's tax bits onto a flash drive and b) backed up all the documents and photos from the PC onto an external HDD.

Lesson learned.

Thanks for trying to help though.

Glad you got it sorted