I should start by saying that I don't know too much about linux (as will probably become obvious).

I am running Suse 9.2.

I found the mouse wheel was no longer scrolling. I started YAST to see what mouse model was listed, chose a different model and clicked 'test'.
The mouse pointer froze and I ended up switching off the machine and rebooting. When I got to the user log-in dialogue there was the pointer still in the same place on the screen.

I have tried repairing from the Suse 9.2 dvd.
It tells me that package yast2-trans-en is missing but when I select 'repair' it says 'installation of missing package not successful'.
Then it finds problems with postfix and yast2-installation. I selected these for repair and got the message 'reinstallation of unverified packages was not successful'.

All this time the pointer was working fine but when it booted from the hard disk it ends up at the user log-in dialogue with the pointer still frozen.

Is it possible to fix this or should I abandon it, reformat the hard disk and start again. I have managed to save most (though not all) of my data on to a USB drive using a Knoppix dvd.

I got that very same issue myself during my attempt to install SuSE 9.3. I tried using other mice, ranging from 2 button, to higher end 9 button mice in an attempt to trick it into working. It did not work. So I went with SuSE 10 and did not have that issue again.

I personally abandoned the issue, but that is because I am a newbie who was just fed up with other little parts that weren't quite working right too, and I had hoped 10 would fix this when it was released. For me they did.

I don't know if that helps or not, but good luck.