"Press any key". Uh-oh

[321Mike]

I'm having an interesting issue while trying to reformat a hard drive. The computer in question is loaded with adware, spyware, and who knows what else. I figured the best solution is to reformat - start from scratch and show the computer's owner how to protect themselves a little better. Sounds simple enough.

I saved their important files on cd, inserted the windows XP disc, and restarted. As the computer starts a message comes up saying, "press any key to boot from cd". Then it waits a few seconds for me to press a key. I pressed a key and nothing happened - it just booted normally. After a couple more failed attempts I took a look at the back of the computer. He has a USB keyboard because the regular keyboard port stopped working. I tried plugging in a normal keyboard and got no response - no lights on the keyboard - just totally dead.

I assume the computer won't take input from the USB keyboard until windows is running. So how do I press the "any" key when the keyboard won't work? Or is there another way to get the computer to boot from the cd?