Hi, my problem is my keyboard no longer functions at boot up. And I am no longer able to insert a bootable cd and use it, so I can't recover anything. I couldn't even get the windows cd to function because I couldn't hit return ( or any key ) so that it would boot.
something seems to be wrong with my MBR or bios but I can't access either one of those as well. My computer seems frozen at boot. I did however get freebsd 6.1 installed, so that I could write this post. I previously had XP and FC5 installed and everything worked fine last night. I used a couple of live cd's this morning and one worked the other didn't. When I restarted my computer I could no longer use the arrow keys or the enter key to choose an OS. I am at a total loss. I can't get any cd other than freebsd to boot and run. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks

Sounds like BIOS - is this a usb keyboard by any chance ???.
If so, just try a "classic" one and see what happens.

Yes it's usb. And I did try a classic one. It didn't work either. Also, the bios set-up cd won't boot. I tried that too. I have an ASUS P5sd2-X series motherboard with a SIS656 chipset

I had a similar problem so i updated the bios. If you can obtain an update for your bios via the web i would recommend updating. In most cases this solves the problem. Flashing the BIOS can be hard for someone who has not had to do it before, MSI let you upgrade it via the web without having to do anything. I'm not too sure about ASUS, i have never use one before.
So basically if you havent done it before get someone to do it that has (teach you for next time), or if you really want print of the step by step guide they will give you with the download.

You could also get a Win ME/98 boot disk (floppy) and load with CDROM support. If this works get it to load your XP CD and then you can install. If you havent formatted you NTFS/FAT partition you can use the repair option to fix any fault win may have.

Have you replaced a dead or weak CMOS battery lately? I put a fresh one in today and was mystified when although I COULD use the keyboard for BIOS setup (all the settings were gone due to lack of battery for a few seconds), as soon as GRUB started, keyboard was totally unusable. Now I realize this is a different problem from yours, but it could be related, so thought I'd suggest that maybe you need to ENABLE "legacy USB support" in the BIOS, when you can reach the BIOS. That's what I'd forgotten to do. The default was DISABLED and that means the BIOS can use a USB keyboard but Grub can't--because the kernel knows nothing about USB at that point. I learned from a Google find that the BIOS looks at a USB keyboard as a traditional PS2 one for its purposes, and that's how it can use one.

Probably not useful to you, but I thought I'd throw it out--it might help somebody else, anyway. Hope you find a solution soon (and post it!).

thanks for the suggestions,
I have tried updating the bios via the net, it didn't work. I had to dump freebsd because it also stopped booting, the timer disappeared and I couldn't use the keyboard arrows to boot. I did somehow get windows to re-install, the install kept hanging at the press F8 option to continue until I randomly pressed keys and the install continued. It still didn't help. I still can't install another OS or boot a live cd. My legacy keyboard won't even type when connected. And I still don't have access to the bios. My only thought now is that I've suffered a hardware failure. It seems like my bios or my motherboard are somehow faulty. I'm stuck with windows right now, and it seems to sense a problem because it runs disk check every 2nd or 3rd boot, but it still boots. So I'm at a loss, I'm going to take it in for a diagnosis, it's a sick puppy.