keyboard disabled at win98 startup boot disk

[bikerchick4God]

I am writing from a compaq, winXP about a second PC I acquired 2 days ago from it's year long hiatus in a basement: a 366c e-machine, win98 OS.
Having only one keyboard I was flipping it between pc's via the usb port.
I've gotten registry error msgs. (could be from uninstalling aol). I thought I needed to update windows so I went on-line to download a 17 item list of updates. The server eventually timed out. Before reattempting that arduous process I uploaded a program from disk that would tweak the e-machine. During a prerequisite installation of vbr v6.0 I got a fatal exception msg and pretty much ignored it. Any msg screen disables the keyboard and the PS2 mouse so I'd have to re-start via on/off button. Last msg screen my pc is stuck on:

"A device file is specific in the SYSTEM.INI file is damaged. It may be needed to run windows. You may need to run the windows set up program again. If the file is included in another software pkg you may need to reinstall the software that uses the file.
NTKERN"

All that said, here's the problem:
I shut down the e-machine 3 times and got the same SYS.INI msg each time. I can't escape the screen because my keyboard & mouse are disabled. I attached a PS2 adapter to the keyboard's usb connector, turned the pc off then on to restart & keyboard's still rendered useless.
I thought if I loaded the win98 startup floppy and cd that win98 would run on it's own without my tabbing to select a disk to start from unfortunately I still have to hit ENTER to let the disk operate and can't.
The pc is now sitting on the start windows setup now OK screen
How do I get Windows to run if I can't use the keyboard or mouse to press enter?

thanks so much for your time. Have a great day!!


__________________
BETTER EVERY DAY

[osprey4]

Have you enabled USB legacy support in your BIOS, so you can use the keyboard prior to loading Windows?

The NTKERN thing doesn't seem to be one specific thing, but take a look at THIS. One MSKB article indicated it could be bad or poorly seated RAM. That would be consistent with the fact that the machine has been off for a while.

Sorry, where are my manners, WELCOME to TechIMO!!

[bikerchick4God]

THANKS FOR THE WELCOME
I made no system changes - I was so surprised it booted up and ran. I connected a scanner and msn isp and scanned 20 or so photos intending to email the files to my winXP compaq cos the scanner is not compatible w/out an upcharge
Started getting registry errors & fixes but had to use the on/off to restart cos the keyboard/mouse were disabled during the msgs. Sys would hang quite a bit too - 32mg ram & 3.2gig HD... go figger!
I made no provisions for back up except on the hard drive....
Can I reformat the harddrive w/out a keyboard and install a clean version of win982e? Aside from installing the harddrive into my compaq and doing the work from there, I am lost! PS: I have 2 pc's blue-screenin me cos i went inside tough way ta learn and now I"M PARANOID!
OK< Memory is seated. Had a 3 beep start up msg. Assuming the ram was bad, I switched sticks with one of the blue screen pc's. Got 64 mgs ram now but same ole story - stuck on a msg screen. This time it says something about freeing up space on the harddrive...
Still can't even click ok - keyboard in ps2 slot is disabled...
thanks for your time
nancy

[bikerchick4God]

IT IS FINISHED anyone needing this solution plz email me

[osprey4]

OH, come on! We offer to help and you won't give the solution?

Pleeeeeeeeeeze tell us, won't you?