I have an old Arsys machine and the hard drive has been wiped clean. It appears it needs a PS2 keyboard and of course all I could find was a USB keyboard. When I boot it up, all I get is a blinking cursor at a C: prompt. I am trying to INSTALL XP on it from a CD, but it's not recognizing the USB keyboard. I am looking for a little guidance in overcoming this obstacle. Any help WOULD be highly appreciated.Get a PS/2 keyboard or a USB to PS/2 adapter.Do you think I'll be good to go after I obtain the proper equipment? What I mean is will I have to do anything different to install the OS considering the hard drive has been wiped clean? Also when I boot it up I don't get an OPTION to hit F2/F12 to CHANGE the boot setup so that it'll boot from the DISK(does that mean anything). Is there anything I will have to type at the C: prompt to get XP installed, considering I'm trying to install it from a disk? The easiest way will be to setup the BIOS to boot from the disc drive.
Try the keys mentioned here and see if one of them can take you to the BIOS config.
If you can't get it to boot from a disc you can use the XP floppy boot set.
Home or ProAll of this is moot until you have the keyboard...
Start there first.
The other steps will not be that difficult but your keyboard needs to be functioning.