[BIOS not Mageia]keyboard inactive on Grub2 menu, but ok on

[Myles]

Hello again all.
Yes more problems (I will open another one as well on locale)

Okay, this problem started out of the blue last weekend in amongst other problems/re-boots I was having when LibreOffice and my printer both disappeared from my system (separate problems but fixed now)

Anyway, during one of these problems I re-booted, and tried to press Enter on the Grub2 menu to boot Mageia - and found that the KB wouldn't work. I have had other instances where my wired KB suddenly won't work so I unplug/replug and all is good - but not this time. I had to wait for the default 30secs for Mageia to boot and then at the login screen I was able to use my KB to login and use my system as normal!????

So, now I cannot select anything else on the Grub2 menu at re-boot! So I have no access to booting any previous version of the kernel or my Windows partition or anything!

I have even tried a completely, brand new KB in a separate USB port and the same thing happened - so it's not the KB.

I have no idea what caused this nor how to fix this.

Any help, as always, greatly accepted.

[aguador]

You do not say if this is Mageia 7 or Cauldron. I had the same problem today in Cauldron with the 5.7.3-2 kernel that had last booted into Win7. I wound up booting from on old copy of Super Grub2 Disk (https://www.supergrubdisk.org/super-grub2-disk/) I have lying about on a pendrive. I was then able to log into the 5.7.2 kernel from there. Later rebooted to 5.7.3 kernel and all seemed well, but have not had a chance to test further as that machine is "otherwise engaged" (with another user) at the moment.

Let me know if this helps. I will test further when I have access to the machine.

[aguador]

Oops, I just saw Doktor5000's reply to your locale problem and see that it is Mageia 7. Maybe sorting out the locale issue will clear this up. I will just add two things there: first, as I understand it SSDs tend to be all or nothing, but it sounds as if you may have a hardware problem that led to your reinstall. Perhaps worth investigating. Second, Super Grub2 Disk is an excellent utility to keep around. It can help when Grub2 configuration is corrupted for some reason.

[doktor5000]

When was the last time this worked? Did you maybe change BIOS / UEFI settings in between at some point?
Please check in BIOS / UEFI if something like legacy USB device support or USB emulation is enabled.

Also, can you try with a PS/2 keyboard or adapter ?

[Myles]

doktor,
Well this has just gone from bad to worse!

doktor said
When was the last time this worked? Did you maybe change BIOS / UEFI settings in between at some point?
Please check in BIOS / UEFI if something like legacy USB device support or USB emulation is enabled.

Like I said, last weekend it started out of the blue during the problems I was having with LO and my printer disappearing. I can't remember why I had to reboot, but I did - but the KB was fully functioning in all the other times prior to the failure.

Now to why it is worse: I just rebooted to get into the BIOS....and I can't even do that any more - I have absolutely NO KB active until Mageia fully boots to the login screen and I'm able to login and use Mageia normally.

doktor wrote:
Also, can you try with a PS/2 keyboard or adapter ?

I used to have one, I may still have it but I don't know where. I'll have to hunt around for it, but, given the nature of this now, I'm not so sure that will do any good. But I'll have a look anyway.

[doktor5000]

Now to why it is worse: I just rebooted to get into the BIOS....and I can't even do that any more - I have absolutely NO KB active until Mageia fully boots to the login screen and I'm able to login and use Mageia normally.

Until the kernel boots, when grub is active, it resorts to low-level functionality. So if you can't even get into the BIOS, that is the issue you need to fix. And that's not a Mageia issue.

[Myles]

doktor,
Okay thanks for that.

I'll have to delve into my motherboard info and find out how I might solve this.

Thanks for the help on this anyway, always welcome.