anyone up for a tech challenge?

#1

Description of problem and what we have to work with:
A piece of equipment/machine is run with an integrated PC which is just running the proprietary software in a windows 2000 environment. There is no CDROM drive, there is a floppy drive, however it is non-bootable (unless the equipment is partially disassembled and some jumpers are moved on a board). There is a USB port which, once the software is up and running, is live and is used to transfer data to and from "thumb drives". When the equipment powers up, there is NO login procedure, windows 2000 automatically logs in with a limited user account. The goal is to stop the autologin step so that an alternate username and password, with admin privlidges, can be provided. Holding the SHIFT ket during boot does halt the auto-login process. However, there is something blocking any keystrokes being registered from the keyboard. The mouse is active and can be used to shutdown or restart the system. Once the OS and software has booted up, access to the desktop is available, however, right clicks are disabled; no explorer, taskmanager, run command access is available; and the only items in the start menu are restart or logout/shutdown.

Anyone have any ideas what might be blocking the keyboard at the login screen and how it might be circumvented?
I would be interested in any ideas anyone has. If you have a question I did not answer I will provide whatever details you need.

-E

#2

How is the keyboard connected..?

Sounds like some sort of protective sofware is on it, like Novell or something...That is the first thing that comes to mind, as I know it behaves exactly like you described...Can you verify that it is, or isn't on the system..?

#3

Yeah, sounds like a thin-client setup..
Could you give me a mobo product ID/Name?

Either way, it looks as though you're probably gonna have to reinstall..

#4

there is no antivirus or firewall software on this PC and networking is disabled/not installed. There is a local 80GB Seagate HD that the OS and Main program run from. Also, because this computer is integrated into the piece of equipment, it does not use an "off the shelf" motherboard. I was thinking there might be some startup script that disables the keyboard for login. It is perplexing because the keyboard is working because the shift works to stop the autologin process but then will not work to type a username and password.

#5

That definitely sounds like Novell, or something similar...And since its 2000, I am fairly certain that there is no such script native to Professional...A Novell managed box behaves just like what you describe, to a T...Fairly common in places where you aren't really supposed to fuck with stuff, as I said, I got familiar with it, as it was on my universities lab PC's...

The only way would to be to make a linux boot disk, but you said the floppy is disabled, so that eliminates that...

#6

Try hooking the HDD up to a computer that you know works OK, and see if the same syptoms appear. I do beleive it sounds like Novel or similar groupware management applications.

#7

well, some new developments!

I have uncovered a cdrom (left behind by a service person) which contains a ghosted image of the installed software including OS. I will have to work on extracting it and see if there are some Novell Apps in the directory tree.

I thought about hooking up the HD into an external USB enclosure and plugging it into my laptop and accessing it that way, but I remember seeing some references to CRC checks in the previous version of this software (which I had decompiled after extracting it from the old windows nt 4.0 based installation) and I think I remember reading that anytime you hook up a HD to a windows XP box, xp will write some BS unique global identification number to the device and I did not want to risk fouling up this new install.

If I can get my hands on a copy of ghost, does anyone know if I can just extract this image to any HD, hook it up to a spare PC and boot it up? obviously drivers etc might be a little different but maybe I can try booting into safe mode?

Thanks for this input so far, if you think of anything else feel free to chime in!

#8

Now Ghost I've never dealt with, but Faps should know...If we can get him to strop trolling the fucking site to death, he could probably shed some real light on the subject at this point...

#9

Once you have the ghost image you only need to know what software was used to make that image (most common used is Norton ghost (if it's a .gho file)), now let's suposed you have that image in CD or DVD or some other drive, conect a FREE HD to a spare pc boot it with the ghost software (Norton comes in one Floppy or in bootable a CD) and you follow the steps, it's quick.
Ok now i realized that I donno if that was what you were asking.

#10

I remembered having an utility to change the password of Windows NT, 2000, XP or 2003 booting from a floppy lemme know if you need it in case you can conect a floppy or any other bootable device to the weird system you are fighting with.