It accepted the first key I pressed just now (that would be the 'W' at the beginning of this post).
I can't say that this fixed it for sure, because it didn't always happen before, and considering the first key I pressed was technically 'Shift', I won't assume anything just yet. I'll continue using the machine with the hd option unchecked and let you know if it happens anymore throughout the next day or two.
If you don't hear back from me (and I hope you don't) then everything is good, and thank you very much.
Later on I'll create a new account and try it again. As I said the first time I tried this, I might not have let the machine sit long enough. I think I did, but you never know.
Thanks again for taking the time to help me with such a mundane problem.
I don't know if this exists or not, but is there a keyboard plist that you could try trashing? I just searched panther and couldn't find anything useful when I typed in "keyboard", but maybe someone else could elaborate on the idea..?
It wouldn't be a .plist if he reset his account by renaming the ~/Library and it still happened. We still need to determine if it happens when logged in as another user.