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USB Keyboard and/or Mouse Stop Responding when Selecting USB Drives

Problem:

Your USB input device (keyboard or mouse) stops responding after selecting USB in the Bus drop-down in Work with Partitions.

Cause:

When BootIt BM takes control of a USB controller, it only provides support for mass storage devices.

Solution:

You may try the following suggestions:

  • Use a PS/2 input device, either at all times, or only when using BootIt BM.

  • If your external device supports IEEE 1394 (FireWire) in addition to USB, try using IEEE 1394.

  • If the computer's BIOS provides support for the external device, try using the BIOS option instead of the USB option. Note: If you use this method, be aware that BIOS support for USB devices may be buggy (especially on older computers). Among other things, this can cause slow access as the BIOS may use USB1 speeds for USB2 devices.

  • If you have multiple USB controllers, you may connect the USB input device(s) and drive to different controllers and use the USBIgnoreMask option to hide one of them from BootIt BM.  By hiding the USB controller where the USB input device is plugged in, you can prevent BootIt BM from taking control of the USB input device and therefore prevent BootIt BM from interferring with it.  (If you don't already have an alternate USB controller available, one option is to obtain and install a PCI-based USB controller.) It usually takes some experimentation to determine which controller to hide, but the two USB ports next to each other are usually controlled by the same host controller.

    To access the USBIgnoreMask option it is necessry to edit he BOOTITBM.INI file located in the BootIt EMBRM partition. In Work with Partitions, select the BootIt EMBRM partition and click the Edit File button. Select the BOOTITBM.INI file and click OK. Locate the [Options] section and create a new line in it for the USBIgnoreMask option. Set the value depending on the controller(s) you wish to ignore and then click OK to save the file. For example:

    To hide the first controller: USBIgnoreMask=1
    To hide the second controller: USBIgnoreMask=2
    To hide the third controller: USBIgnoreMask=4
    To hide both the first and second controllers: USBIgnoreMask=3

    Note that the USBIgnoreMask option uses a basic Bit Mask numbering scheme to select the controller(s).

    If this option does not provide a successful workaround to the issue, edit the BOOTITBM.INI file again and undo the changes.

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