For the desktop installations, used your tip, all windows drives disconnected as was everything else, just had 1 drive, PS2 KB & standard HID compliant USB mouse + Net connection. Nothing else. All 64 bit distros failed to detect the mouse so don't know how it actually did so the once.

Are you using the mouse in the USB ports beside the PS2 connector or elsewhere (most by that port will work at USB 1.0) and is your mouse USB 1 capable as some older hardware will have trouble powering up a later version mice.

Also check your BIOS's USB section as some have some settings may not be set to legacy mode to deal with what you're experiencing.

I'm just throwing out things here that I have come across in rare situations as the process should be pretty painless. ;-)

Cheers.

Thanks for the assist Wiggo. Went back & doubled checked bios. All set to legacy mode. Have 6 USB slots on the back 4 v1/2 & 2 v3. Have tried all 4 but not the v3 slots yet. Will try those later.
As for the laptop. All up & running. Bit weird in that the Wi-Fi worked in detecting networks but as mine was hidden, just entered SSID & password but every time activation failed. Just accessed router & made visible, it requested authentication, entered, now have Wi-Fi.
Also tested Hotspot via iPhone, a-o-k.
Now if only the desktop was this easy.

Never been comfortable with touchpads/trackballs, so often used a mini-mouse on the laptop. Plugged that in last night & detected straight away. Will also try that on the desktop later.

Okay, thanks to Wiggo. Had to pull rig out for easier access. Got it wrong, Do not have 6 USB slots but 8. 4(v1/2), 2(v3) & 2 (v1/2).
Mouse works in either v3 slot. However, NO v1/2 slot detected. Did various tests with various devices, none detected unless in a v3 slot. So, it is a hardware detection issue, not one of having esoteric hardware installed, which only confirms my original statement that of a coding issue.

I can safely say:
Microsoft Windows 1
Linux 0

As seen with my laptop which has 2 USB v1/2 slots, Mint 64 installs nicely. From what has been experienced over the past several days is that there is a conflict in detection if both v1/2 & v3 USB's are on-board the motherboard. An issue not experienced by Windows as all devices detected. :-)

The person on the train was marked as speeding

ROFLMAO.
Hire better programmers.

After nearly a month of using Mint, all I can say is nice & useful. However unlike Mint 13 which ran without any issues, Mint 19 regularly threw up 2 niggling issues.
1: every so often would not shutdown properly - it shutdown the OS but not the computer.
2: also every so often, it would freeze after logging in - only a reboot would clear it.
So, bye bye Linux.

Thought I'd give myself a St Paddy's day treat, but...
it makes a liar out of me. :-(
...well, it was a donated system (Dell OptiPlex 380) from father-in-law who has been downsizing & a free upgrade from MS. (if you look for it) :-)
Only integrated graphics, but looks good for vga on a 22".
Just need a SFF GPU now with HDMI. :-)
Won't bother installing Win 10 Pro 64 on laptop now, I'll keep that for the next desktop build.

Pretty sure that most of us have some "horror" stories about computers. Over the years, had many but none as frustrating as this week. :-(
Got a new bit of kit on Sunday, 2 bay drive docking station with a standalone cloning function. Great bit of kit.
Spent most of Sun/Mon copying all media to bigger drives for use in DAS & NAS.
Next on the to do list was cloning C drives.
That's when the problems began. :-(
Cloning failed for this rig.
Okay, tried the following:
Acronis
Macrium
EaseUS

All failed with the same errors so:
Ran Chkdk with Scan & fix errors. Found 3 files with bad clusters.
All 3 still failed so went looking for my copy of Clonezilla used many times successfully in the past. Couldn't find it so downloaded & burnt new ISO.
Clonezilla failed which surprised me..Okay, it was getting late so resorted to final option (failed me miserably In the past),
Windows backup - create system image then retired for the night.

Woke up yesterday & find that it completed successfully with a dialogue box asking if I wanted to create a system repair disk.
Did so then commenced restoring to a new 2tb (old one fairly old & only 1 tb & getting full). Success, so reconnected all other drives.
Bios see all but on rebooting, get a line of gobblygook on the screen. So after playing around with rig 4 & win 10, retired for the night.

1st thing today, thought it could be a drive clash as all drives now same make & model. Enter bios & see that all drives except one has their own code.
2 drives had the same code, so eventually found which of the 2 it was & disconnected, rebooted, same gobblygook. Finally tracked it down to a flakey power splitter & replaced.


Now for the usual Windows gumf...
Win 10 & using the correct log in, accessed this rig (want to copy over some pics & docs (relevant drives shared) No problem.
Tried the other way round, denied even though correct log in details used. :-(
Edited to shorten width.

World's Fastest Supercomputer, Summit, Joins The Battle Against COVID-19 | IFLScience 
https://www.iflscience.com/technology/worlds-fastest-supercomputer-joins-the-battle-against-covid19/

Summit: 200 EFlops (200,000 TFlops), still #1 (at the moment) on the Top500 list

---

Apr 3, 1999 - May 3, 2020

Summit: 200 EPFlops (200,000 TFlops)

// stickler for details. :^)

---

Summit: 200 EPFlops (200,000 TFlops)

// stickler for details. :^)

0,2 EFlops it is, then.

Damn it, Jim; I'm a SETI@home participant, not a computer scientist ! ^^

---

Apr 3, 1999 - May 3, 2020

Urgent need for COBOL programmers
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/08/business/coronavirus-cobol-programmers-new-jersey-trnd/index.html

I was a COBAL programer for a couple of years after college, it was not a good fit.

---

Ah... Cobol... Memories:)

Here's a very good example of why COBOL is all-caps from those 'good old days'...


Using a 1930 Teletype as a Linux Terminal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XLZ4Z8LpEE


Back in the day, 'twas all a very different world! Where the CPU to run your program was the size of an entire room!!...


Keep searchin',
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Here's some modern day trickery that I personally describe as fraudulent:


Sneaky Marketing Redux: Toshiba, Seagate Shipping Slower SMR Drives Without Disclosure, Too
wrote:

... sneaking out hard drives using inferior SMR technology -- which results in devastatingly slow performance in some types of applications -- without disclosing that fact to customers in marketing materials or specification sheets...

... Given that SMR drives suffer from abysmal random write performance, which is a key type of write pattern that impacts performance in desktop operating systems, the drives will result in noticeably slower performance for PC users...

... without disclosure. However, Seagate, like others, does correctly label several of their archival hard drives as using SMR tech, making the lack of disclosure on mainstream models appear to be a bit of purposeful deception...

That is quite nasty and will be a real unexpected puzzle and time waster for anyone caught out by such silliness...

Hopefully the HDD manufacturers will be very quickly pulled up to better honesty for what they are selling.


All in our only one overly greedy world,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Here's some modern day trickery that I personally describe as fraudulent:

Sneaky Marketing Redux: Toshiba, Seagate Shipping Slower SMR Drives Without Disclosure, Too

Further detail from ArsTechnica:

Buyer beware — that 2TB-6TB “NAS” drive you’ve been eyeing might be SMR
wrote:

... One of these disks is inordinately slower than the other and costs less to manufacture. Can you guess which one?...

... The writing on the wall here seems clear. Yes, Western Digital slid SMR drives into traditional, non-enterprise channels—and no, the company doesn't feel bad about it, and you shouldn't expect it to stop.

What really grinds our gears about this is that the only conceivable reason to shift to SMR technology in such small disks—lowered manufacturing costs due to fewer platters required—doesn't seem to be being passed down to the consumer. The screenshot above shows the Amazon price of a WD Red 2TB EFRX and WD Red 2TB EFAX—the EFRX is the faster CMR drive, and the EFAX is the much slower SMR drive.

Western Digital doesn't appear to be the only hard drive manufacturer doing this—blocksandfiles has confirmed quiet, undocumented use of SMR in small retail drives from Seagate and Toshiba as well...

As I've mentioned IMHO:

That is quite nasty and will be a real unexpected puzzle and time waster for anyone caught out by such silliness...

Hopefully the HDD manufacturers will be very quickly pulled up to better honesty for what they are selling.

All in our only one overly greedy world,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

When I first heard of SMR's basis a few years ago when it was planning to be introduced, I thought it would only be usable for data storage, not as an active OS platform as it would be too slow. I wondered if its slowness would be noticed should this occur; guess it was!

---

Sheesh, 3 tabs open that suddenly drop & while writing post. :-(

Shut down router, cleared & rebooted after 2 min. Open Seti, hmm, good so open 2nd tab (WCG). This page cannot be displayed, returned to the 1st tab, this page can't be displayed.
Checks all cable, everything look good so boot up NAS. No problem viewing media. Scratches head.
Just seconds ago, gets BBC home page.
Oops
From what I've been experiencing, it's still intermittent. :-(

Sheesh, 3 tabs open that suddenly drop & while writing post. :-(

Shut down router, cleared & rebooted after 2 min. Open Seti, hmm, good so open 2nd tab (WCG). This page cannot be displayed, returned to the 1st tab, this page can't be displayed.
Checks all cable, everything look good so boot up NAS. No problem viewing media. Scratches head.
Just seconds ago, gets BBC home page.
Oops
From what I've been experiencing, it's still intermittent. :-(

Getting exactly the same problems here.
I see that was 21 mins ago, well its not fixed as I am just back from another outage.