I think it all started after a power outage. I checked all the partitions, they were clean. I don't think I started X for a day or 2 after that. I go to start X and I get one of those (EE) cannot open device /dev/input/mice or something like that. Not sure exactly, ran an apt update since then and xorg was upgraded so the message changed slightly.
I figure the power outage fried the mouse or the ps2 port or something, but I couldn't get a usb mouse to work either. I booted a puppy and a dsl cd and both of them found my mouse and it worked fine.
X -configure says Xorg is not able to detect your mouse
mdetect can't find anything
when I cat /dev/input/mice, mouse0,1 or /dev/psaux I get : No such device
So can some one tell me what the bloody heck happened to my mouse??
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Xorg.0.log (output)
(EE) xf86OpenSerial: Cannot open device /dev/input/mice
No such device.
(EE) Configured Mouse: cannot open input device
(EE) PreInit failed for input device "Configured Mouse"
X -configure (output)
Xorg is not able to detect your mouse.
Edit the file and correct the Device.
in the syslog there's the usb mouse
localhost kernel: usbcore: registered new driver usbmouse
drivers/usb/input/usbmouse.c: v1.6:USB HID Boot Protocol mouse driver
in /var/log/messages I can see the dang ps2 mouse
localhost kernel: input: ImPS/2 Generic Wheel Mouse on isa0060/serio1
WTFZ0r5!!!11
stupid mouse
the hardware is good, it all works under live cds. I know debian detects both the mice. So why on earth can't X find them???

I ran dpg-reconfigure xserver-xorg till my eyes bled but it never helped. In fact for some reason when I turned on the frame buffer in there when I would start X I would fail to a black screen. I would have to ssh in to reboot without hard rebooting it. weird
box specs
old Dell 1ghz P3 pos
2.6.11 686 Debian unstable (booting with the 2.6.8 kernel had the same results)
512 ram
nvidia geforce2 running the generic 'nv' driver for now, since the last apt upgrade updated the damn legacy driver again, till I recompile the module.
a microsoft 5 button optical mouse -or-
some gateway 3 button ps2 mouse
I tried everything I know, for the love of god somebody please help me.