Laptop keyboard does not work in Windows 8.1 but works in BIOS

Question

I have a Toshiba Satellite A300-23J and have been running Windows 8 and later windows 8.1 for some time now. Last night my keyboard stopped working for no possible reason. When computer starts up (I think it's called during POST ?) my keyboard works. I can easily enter bios and navigate into it. There is no option to enable or disable keyboard on bios.

Things done so far:

1. Checked Device Manager (not in Safe mode) everything looks OK (no Exclamation marks or red Xs). Tried uninstalling and re-installing the keyboard from there still nothing.

EDIT If it helps the mousepad also stopped working about a week ago but I had an external mouse in handy so I did not really bother with it (the external wireless mouse works perfectly, even custom button commands using x-mouse button). There seems to be a light on the mousepad (a horizontal line light at the bottom of the mousepad before the mouse buttons) which turns on, but no part of the mousepad is working.

Solution 1

I performed all the suggested solutions but none did not seem to do the trick. For some reason, which I do not know, what did the trick for me was the following steps:

1. Shut down laptop
2. Unplug battery
3. Unplug power supply
4. Hold power button for about 1 minute
5. Leave the computer off for an hour
6. Turn it on again

Solution 2

Until you get it fixed, a workaround might the on-screen keyboard, http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/type-with-the-on-screen-keyboard. You might try downloading the drivers for the keypad and/or keyboard from the Toshiba site, http://support.toshiba.com/ and reinstalling them.

Comments

[Justin Love]

Does an external keyboard work, if you plug it in? Are you able to boot to safe mode and check for any warnings in device manager?

[John Demetriou]

I do not have an external keyboard to test. But I did not test the safe mode option. Keep the suggestions coming until I go home from work to test it out

[vembutech]

It seems like an issue with Windows recognizing the devices, try runnning the below mentioned Microsoft troubleshooter and see if this helps: windows.microsoft.com/en-in/windows-vista/…

[John Demetriou]

if you have toshiba TempPro and set to automatically install, that might be the reason