How to Unlock a Keyboard on an HP Laptop

No matter how long you've had your HP laptop, every now and then you'll find that your computer doesn't respond to your commands. You may be typing away, only to find your words don't appear on your screen. Or perhaps you're using your touchpad, but nothing is happening. Whatever the cause of your frozen laptop, you'll be stuck until you can figure out how to repair keyboard issues or disable a touchpad lock.

If your keyboard isn't working, there could be a variety of causes, some of which have nothing at all to do with the keyboard itself. The quickest way to resolve having an HP laptop keyboard locked is to reboot, if possible. If you're unable to use your mousepad or keyboard, try Control + Alt + Delete and end any unresponsive programs. If you're able to do that, your keyboard wasn't locked. If pressing Control + Alt + Delete does nothing, though, you'll need to power the laptop off and back on again. You'll simply hold down the power button and wait patiently until it turns off. When you power it back on, all should be well again. If it isn't, you may need to enable touchpad on your HP laptop.

In some cases, the problem may not be that your keyboard is locked at all. There's a touchpad lock on some HP laptops that could make it seem like your keyboard is locked when it actually isn't. To enable the touchpad on your HP laptop, though, you'll first need to know how this feature works. On some HP models, you'll see a dot in the upper left corner of the touchpad. Double-tapping that dot will fix touchpad lock on your HP laptop.

If all of the above, including rebooting, doesn't help, you'll have to go deeper. If you tried to enable touchpad on HP laptop and it didn't help, make sure you reboot again. As your computer comes back up, try pressing the "Escape" key repeatedly to see if the Startup Menu screen appears. If so, press "F10," then "F5" to load the default BIOS settings. You'll press "F10" to accept changes and restart. If this doesn't work, or the Startup Menu doesn't appear, you likely have a problem with your keyboard hardware or software. Navigate to your control panel. Choose "Hardware and Sound," then "Device Manager" under Devices and Printers and, finally, "View and Show Hidden Devices." Under Keyboards, you should see your keyboard name. Right-click on that and uninstall that keyboard. When you restart, your computer should find your keyboard automatically. If not, you may need to have your keyboard serviced. You can hook up a USB keyboard if you need to use your laptop in the meantime.