no keyboard on restart after crash

I am using Home Premium. After uninstalling Acronis True Image and
Installing Shadow Protect, my system crashed. I had to reboot and, when the
"Safe Mode....Start Windows normally" list appeared, my keyboard was
non-functional. the same happens when I try to boot from the installation
disk. The keyboard *is* seen BIOS phase of start up but the lights go out as
soon as Windows starts. Now I am stuck with a crashed system and no way to
access it. (the mouse does not work either). I am posting this from a
different computer. Any suggestions?

Grab an old keyboard with a ps/2 connector. I assume that the issue is with
the USB keyboard. Check to make sure the USB keyboard on boot is enabled.

Thank you, Augustus. There seems to be two issues - the cause of the crash,
and the fact that I cannot use my keyboard to investigate it. I will try to
lay my hands on a PS2 keyboard (just gave an old one to goodwill :-)), and it
will be interesting to see if that does give me access. My BIOS does not
give me the opportunity to turn a USB keyboard on or off but, as I have been
using it all along and had not changed the BIOS settings, that does not seem
a likely direction in which to look?

Vista has a nasty habit of simply giving up on USB under mysterious
conditions. You can force a hard shutdown by pressing the power button
until shutdown; a cold start usually restores USB.

Unfortunately that does not do the trick, Q, but thank you for your input.

Tell that to Frank. He doesn't believe that Vista has any problems at all
with USB. He'll stalk me here, and hence read your post. Of course there's
no guarantee that Frank, the Usenet Village Idiot will be able to
understand what you wrote.

It is quite possible the keyboard failed.
Use another and see if it works.
I have seen keyboards at walmart for under $10. It never hurts to have a
spare.
Sometimes a power fluctuation will corrupt the BIOS, but that is so rare I
hesitate to even mention it.
Usually if a USB keyboard is good, it will get you into BIOS even if it
doesn't work in Windows.
In some machines BIOS, you have to 'enable legacy device support' to make a
USB keyboard work.

I have solved this after a great deal of trouble and head-scratching.
Without going through the play-by-play, a PS2 keyboard and mouse gave me
access. Then I solved the problem on about the3 seventh run-through with the
Vista installation disk "Repair your computer" utility. At first, it told me
that all was well but the system just crashed again, so I persisted. Thanks
to all who responded to what was a very frustrating 36 hours!

[jack wood]

Shut down computer, remove battery and unplug power cord. Hold power button in for 15 seconds. Reboot...you should have a keyboard.