Hey all, usually I wouldn't ask for help on a forum like this but I've not gone to sleep yet I've been so stressed about it all..

Basically yesterday I noticed that my CD drive wasn't being recognised.. Not too sure why but apparantly i-tunes or nero often causes this problem... Anyways it just wasn't appearing in explorer so I did what both nero and i-tunes suggest and deleted the "upperclass" out of the registry or something.. I did back it up...

Then on my next startup my mouse and keyboard do not function at all.. The only button I can press is the on and off button. the mouse is motionless as is the keyboard..

When restarting I can't even get into safe mode.. I got on once but my laptop froze which was such a pain in the ****.

It's literally the last 2 days that I've been noticing problems. It's really annoying me

By the way I'm on another PC as my laptop (acer aspire 3500) is totally unusable

So you're not able to restore the registry at all? What i've you use the Windows XP CD: This cd is bootable, and then you can use the recovery mode.

When you connect an extern keyboard and mouse, do you still have the problem that you can't use them? And with your intergrated keyboard and mouse: are you able to get into the bios with it? If not, the problem can be that the connector for it doesn't work good anymore. If you can: the problem is as you said it would be in the Windows XP installation. You can use the recovery mode, but I didn't heard of a problem like this before. Maybe someone else who has suggestions?

I can't restore the registry cos I can't get onto anything that can as on xp you can't do it through DOS.

I am pretty clueless when it come sot BIOS and things like that, so pardon my ignorance!

Also, I use an external usb mouse as it is so I don't think that is the problem.

It would be two weeks before I could get my windows XP disk back cos I'm back home from uni for 2 weeks.. Also even if I did have a CD there is no way I could use it as my CD drive is completely useless

The cd-rom drive is useless in Windows, that doensn't mean the cd-rom drive is totally useless. The Windows XP Installation CD can boot from the CD (so you won't get in Windows at all). Cause you don't have the CD-Rom with you I can't help you anymore. Maybe someone else has a few suggestions.

BTW: To get into the bios, you need to press a key, like DEL, F2 or F10 when the bootscreen/logo appears (immediate when you turns on your pc, most likely you see something like your processr and the ammount of ram and the drives detected etcetera). When you look @ that, do you see that your cd-rom drive has been detected. If not: does the cd-rom drive appears in the bios? If not either: there's a problem with your cd-rom drive, besides the problem with your keyboard and mouse in Windows.

Looks like I'm going to need a professional to help. the strange thing is I can press F2 to get into the Bios.. So lord knows why I can't use my keyboard when I get into Xp!

under my bios it says

+Hard Drive
CD-ROM/DVD Drive
Floppy Devices
Network Boot

That's the bootorder. You need to look @ the recognized devices. Most like you can find that @ the first screen you see when you come into the bios.

At least we have determined that the problem really is caused by Windows. That means that in the worst case you need to re-install it. But that's only in the worst case. First let's try to find another way to help you.

All the options I know 'bout putting back the registry needs a cd-rom drive and the option in the bios that you want to boot from the cd-rom. Then you can use programs as the recovery mode on the Windows XP installation disk itself or download a bootdisk which has a program for registry replacements. I have such a bootdisk, but I don't know anymore how I did get that one. Sorry for that, but maybe someone else knows a link...

Thanks for the help.. but even if I did get the link what can I do.. as a)I can't get my disk drive open and b)I can't navigate around explorer or anything due to my mouse not functioning