can someone guesstimate or tell me what happened with my friend's vista computer?

upon startup, it sat at the password prompt with the computer waiting to have a password entered except you couldn't type anything. if you pressed keys nothing happened. when you go into safe mode, the keyboard works so you know it wasn't broken but when you attempt to do a start up in safe mode the same thing happens.

diagnostics didn't catch anything. i ended up doing a system restore to 2 days before and now the computer is working fine. he should be getting a windows 7 upgrade disc soon so i told him to backup info and i'll do a clean install with win7 when it comes. i'm just trying to figure out what happened to it, i couldn't figure out if it was a virus or a system file crashed the keyboard upon startup. he does use limewire...

 

I have personally seen some Windows Update cause issues, but this sounds like a keyboard driver issue...

 

+ if you are updating to 7 soon, i wouldn't sweat it.

 

Double

 

+ 1 for keyboard issue

Try a USB keyboard

 

I had the same problem, ended up on the phone with HP for 2 hours troubleshooting it and ended up having to wipe it out and start over.

 

^did the keyboard work when you went into safe mode?

thanks for the replies guys. i'm guessing if it had been a virus it still would have been fugged up after doing a restore.