No mouse pointer in Win98SE

I'm not sure if this is hardware or software related, so if it needs to be moved to hardware that's fine.

I'm working on a friend's PC that has Win98SE installed. It is working fine except there is no mouse pointer. I have tried removing the mouse in device manager and letting windows find and install it again, I've tried several different PS/2 mice and even a USB mouse. Windows does not complain that there is no mouse attached at startup, and it looks fine in device manager, there just isn't a pointer. I've even tried updating the drivers, still no pointer. I know it is not the PS/2 mouse port, as windows recognizes that there is a mouse attached when I remove it and reboot.

I've never run across this type of problem before. Does anyone have any ideas?

 

Have you tried booting in safe Mode with PS2 mouse attached to see if you get the pointer?

 

Is the mouse problem why you are working on your friends PC?
The following article might apply. If you haven't worked with the registry, you may want to pass on this. Be sure to read the instructions! IMPORTANT: This article contains information about editing the registry. Before you edit the registry, you should first make a backup copy of the registry files (System.dat and User.dat). Both are hidden files in the Windows folder.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;142405

 

If you booted to a boot floppy that installed mouse drivers, that should tell you if it is just a problem with Windows. Harddrive manufacturers utilites usually have mouse drivers or just get Maxtor's Powermax. If it is Windows try a reinstall over itself. If there is no pointer in the boot program then there may be a problem with the connector port.

The mouse and keyboard are definitely connected to the correct PS2 ports? Sometimes the "Windows could not find a PS2 mouse..." does not show up.

Matt

 

Thanks for all the replies, I was finally able to resolve the problem.

I did get the PC because of the mouse problem. He had told me that he had tried Safe Mode and the mouse didn't work there either. Here's what I did;

Booted into Safe Mode to see for myself if it would work, and it did. While there I checked Add/Remove programs to see if there were any mouse related drivers or programs installed, there weren't any. Also ran MSCONFIG and checked the startup items. I found a program being loaded for a mouse that he used to have and unchecked it to keep it from loading. I then rebooted in normal mode, still no mouse. Rebooted again and did a 'step by step confirmation' boot to see what was being loaded. I found two more vxd's being loaded for two different kinds of mice. I rebooted in Safe Mode and ran regedit to find them and delete them after backing up the registry first. I rebooted in normal mode again, still no mouse. I tried deleting the mouse in device manager and letting windows rediscover it on the next boot, still no mouse. With all the other mouse drivers out of the picture, I figured the generic Microsoft driver should at least be loaded. I did another confirmation type boot and noticed there was no attempt to load the generic driver. I decided to open the system.ini file with notepad since that is usually where the mouse driver is defined. When I opened the ini file, there were 3 lines of garbage at the top and it appeared that pretty much of the file was gone. The line to load the mouse driver was there and a few other things but not much more. I backed up the file and deleted the garbage lines, then rebooted with a confirmed boot. The default driver was loaded this time and the mouse pointer was back!

Based on the look of the system.ini file, I think he has more problems than just the mouse. Since he put the PC together himself, I suggested a reformat and reinstall. I could not even change the video resolution. I suggested at least reinstalling most of the hardware if everything else in windows worked ok.

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions, this was a rather difficult one to diagnose.

 

Dead Mouse

I had similar problem after ugrading from 98 to 98se. I tried to install MS Intelli Mouse thingy and it killed exterminated my mouse.

I read above and decided and tried a couple of things but no dice. I figured it had to be something simple per above so I decided to redo upgrade.

Voila, resurrection of one mouse and cursor, sans the stupid Intelli mouse program.