I have Linux Mandriva installed on my desktop pc.

Out of a sudden when I booted the pc the keyboard stopped working, however the mouse works.
This way i have no way to enter my password and access the system.

When I boot Mandriva with the liveCD the keyboard is working fine.

I haven't been running any updates on Mandriva yet and everything used to work fine.

what kind of keyboard?

check the boot parameters

Im using an EasyTouch PS/2 keyboard, I tried to plug it in through a ps2-to-usb plug but it didn't work.

I'm new to linux, how to access the boot parameters? I doubt it's possible if the keyboard is not detected.

Anything yet?

If it did work and the live cd works then we can assume some issue with the data on the hard drive.

You can diag it or just reload it.

Any instructions as how to do it? I have been trying to research but all solutions required access to the system.
I can't access the system without the keyboard.

Will it be possible to access the data stored on the harddrive if i boot from the liveCD?

I know this sounds simple, but have you tried a different USB slot (I see you are using an adapter to go ps2 to usb)? I have had USB slots go bad before...

This hapens to me all the time, I just unplug the keyboard, wait about 10 seconds and plug it back in.

Then check for the numlock or capslock led

It's especially difficult with a dual boot system, as I only have a 4sec pause set for the grub menue.

I'm not sure if it is bios or kernel.

Regards Glenn

I opened the pc up and checked the motherboard, cleaned everything out, it might have been the dust in the heatsink.
Afterwards I switched the power on the back of the pc on and off a few times.
The system booted and I entered the kernel settings and restored all to defaults.

The system booted normally without the cd but the keyboard still didn't work.
I restarted the pc and plugged the keyboard out and in again, then booted again.

Then the pc and the keyboard worked. It could have been issues with detecting the hardware at boot, but now it's hopefully fixed.

I do this while the pc is powered up/live.

be sure to set the bios to not stop on keyboard errors.

Does this work for ps2 keys?