No keyboard/mouse after adding Media Center - can't system restore!

Hello,

I upgraded my HTPC to Windows 8 earlier today. Everything was working fine, no issues with the install right up until I added the Media Center feature. After that installed and rebooted, I have no mouse or keyboard. No mouse cursor, nothing. I've tried different keyboards, different USB ports, everything.

Since, in Microsoft's infinite wisdom they removed the F8 functionality I can't even get into safe mode to do a system restore. Their solution is "boot into windows and use recovery options to restart into safe mode" - great, so what do I do if Windows has disabled the mouse & keyboard?

I can force it into the basic recovery mode by just resetting it a couple times but it won't let me do a system restore from in there, it is telling me the drive is locked.

What do I do? How else can I get into system restore?

The drive is locked? That's a new one.

You need to boot from your install media to get to the recover console.