I'm running Vista Home Premium. I was away from home for four weeks and, when I came home, installed a raft of Windows Updates at the same time. Now I can't boot up.

The complicating factor is that, when I get to the Windows Recovery window that invites me to enter Safe Mode, neither the keyboard nor the mouse is working -- so I can't select Safe Mode. The PC counts down, goes blank and then dumps. Every time. I know the keyboard is working when I power on because I can enter SETUP -- but it isn't working later in the process.

I can press F8 as long and as often as I like. Nothing happens.

Nor can I use the Vista installation disk in the CD-ROM drive to boot from, even when I've used SETUP to specify first boot from CD-ROM. The system ignores it.

So: how do I get to Safe Mode with no keyboard and no mouse?

Hi, in the bios you need to set usb mouse support and usb keyboard support to enable. Then your mouse and keyboard should work.

You are a genius. Thank you.

I still have a problem. Now the mouse and keyboard both work and I can click on Safe Mode -- or any of the other options that F8 brings up -- but the computer simply hangs (or, sometimes, crashes). Whichever option I choose, I cannot get the PC to boot. Is there anything I can do?

Hi, have a look at this link http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial148.html If your PC will not start this will be the last option for you.

Okay, well, I tried that but it simply wouldn't work. So now I've installed a new Hard Drive and reinstalled Vista on it, and my old drive is E:

The only problem I currently know for sure I still have is that I simply cannot get my old Outlook messages, which are on Drive E, into Outlook on Drive C, so I can't see them -- and I need to. Is there some method for importing an existing Outlook 2007 message file into a new install of Outlook 2007?

It's all right -- I cracked it