My USB keyboard will not work

A few months ago my rabbit chewed the wire. I bought a plug and play usb keyboard and it didn't work. Thinking it was a malfunction of the keyboard I exchanged it for another. None of them work. I'm using windows xp. The wizard is no help for it states can't find the necessary software to complete the installation. After looking around I realized my drivers for a keyboard have vanished. I tried downloading a few but couldn't find the right one. I'm now using the on screen one too type and I ABHOR it, it's taking forever to just type this. I'm not very computer savvy, so please explain at a kindergartner level. Please help? I'm begging lol.

I can't roll back the driver, I don't have any keyboard drivers. Under device manager there isn't a window key nor a keyboard option either. I have mice or monitor options but nothing for keyboard. I do know a while back that I did have one listed here. Just don't know where it went to. Under keyboard properties - hardware there is nothing listed.

System restore was the very first thing I tried. Didn't work either
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Thanks for trying to help, I appreciate it.
 
Download and burn Hirens Boot CD to a CD.

Boot from the Hirens CD and select mini-XP mode from the menu. Does your keyboard work fine in mini-XP mode (that will verify your hardware - USB ports and keyboard OK)

You can open an explorer window in mini-XP to look at the files on your hard disk (it will probably be assigned a drive letter other then C: ). Verify if each of these files exist (make sure you;re looking at your hard disk when you check for these files)
\WINDOWS\inf\keyboard.inf
\WINDOWS\inf\keyboard.pnf
 
Oh-key Doh-key. We'll take it back to the top. We're going to create a bootable CD that contains a tool called "mini-XP" which will boot your machine to an XP environment
> If your mouse/keyboard works when your machine boots into mini-XP, we know your hardware is OK
> Then you'll use your mouse/keyboard (while you're still running mini-XP) to explore the files on your hard drive to check if certain driver files exist

  1. Click HERE to go to the web site. Scroll down till you see the disk icon with the green arrow. To the right, click on the filename hot link named Hirens.BootCD.15.2.zip. It's a large file and may take several minutes to download
  2. Extract the files to a folder on your Desktop. If you need instruction on how to extract the files click HERE
  3. We care about the file named Hirens.BootCD.15.2.iso. ISO's are "image" files. ISO image files are burned to CD using a special tool.
  4. Click HERE then click the Download Now button on the site. The download should start after several seconds.
  5. I'm assuming your CD drive can burn CD's? Insert a blank CD. Run ImageBurn. Click where it displays Write Image file to disk. Browse to the ISO file on your Desktop and burn the CD
imgburnw.jpg

If the CD is burned, you should be able to click on Computer, right click the CD drive, select Open and a program should start. OK so far?

Now we need to be able to boot your machine from the CD. Shutdown your computer and re-start it. Will your computer boot from the CD?
> If yes, you'll see a black and white menu and you can use your down arrows to select mini-XP then hit Enter
> If no, you'll see the usual Windows XP start screen.

Do you know how to set your machine to boot from CD?? What make/model is your computer? When you first start your computer, when the first screen appears briefly, look if it indicates a Function Key to go to a Boot Menu. (e.g. I think on Dells it's usually F12)
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Thanks so much. I don't have time right now to do all the steps. But I'll get to it latter today and let you know how it went. :D
 
Thanks so much. I don't have time right now to do all the steps. But I'll get to it latter today and let you know how it went. :D
OK.

But if booting from the Hiren's CD becomes a lot of grief, you can try this next step from your online keyboard too (or using Hirens if you booted into mini-XP)

> Open Windows file Explorer. Click Tools->Folder Options->View. Scroll down and click on the radio button to Show hidden files and folders. Hit OK
> Navigate to folder Windows\system32\inf. Now tell me if these two files exist keyboard.inf and keyboard.pnf
 
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