Connecting my wireless mouse to my computer causes it to not boot – what do I do?

In this excerpt from
Answercast #33, I look at a mouse that is confusing a computer into thinking
it’s a boot device; and of course, it isn’t!

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USB mouse receiver prevents boot

Your intuition is correct. This is actually a BIOS problem and has nothing to do with Windows or with the software you may have installed in Windows. In reality, I consider this to be a failing in the mouse. It should not cause the computer to do what it’s doing.

To be clear, what it’s doing (for whatever reason) is:

• The computer thinks that the mouse adapter/ receiver is a hard disk that it should try to boot from.

• Of course, it’s not.

• It’s not a hard disk; it is not a bootable hard disk;

• So the computer actually can’t do anything.

That’s what I believe is causing it to stop if the USB mouse receiver is installed.

Change the Boot Order

Now, the only way that I know to fix that (aside from getting a mouse from a different manufacturer) is to go into your computer’s BIOS and change what’s called the Boot Order.

The computer looks at different devices in a specific order that you can configure in your BIOS.

• Normally, it will look at your hard disk first.

• If there’s nothing there, it might look at a CD-ROM.

We often change the boot order to look at things like a CD-ROM and USB, first, before it actually tries to boot from the hard disk, in case if you have something that you want to boot from temporarily.

• For example, you’re trying a Linux Live CD or something like that,

• Then, just inserting the media and rebooting your machine will cause your BIOS to find it first.

In your case, clearly, that’s getting in the way. So what I would recommend you do is:

• Change the BIOS boot order to look at your hard disk before it looks at any USB devices,

• Or perhaps not look at any USB devices at all.

Now, I know the first thing you’re going to ask is, “How do I do that?” Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer for you because the settings in the BIOS are different for different computers.

So what I would suggest you do is take a look at perhaps the documentation that came with your machine, or the documentation you might find on the website of your computer’s manufacturer. See if they have instructions for exactly the keystrokes required to go into your BIOS and make that change.

That’s basically what I think you’re going to have to do – either:

• Get a mouse that doesn’t confuse your computer.

• Change your computer’s BIOS to stop looking at USB devices to boot from.