Toshiba laptop help needed

OK, I am a computer thickie but my daughters laptop touchpad isnt working. I have had a brief look around and can't suss it out. it is a Toshiba Eqium. At the moment she is using a usb mouse to operate it.
What do I need to do or where do I need to look to fix the touchpad.

Have you tried getting the palm rest up to make sure the cables connected securly?
Not that it's likely that's come out unless it's been banged about, may be easier to re-install the drivers for it first see if that helps
It's been a while since I've used Tosh's, can the touchpad be disabled or the sensitivity changed through the software?

This might sound like a daft question, but did the touchpad stop working & that's why your daughter plugged in the USB mouse, or did you notice it stop working after she started using the mouse? Some touchpad drivers will automatically disable the touchpad if they detect the presence of another pointing device.

Got up one day and the pad wasn't working. Plugged in the mouse so she could use the laptop.

I've had exactly the same issue with my Tosh laptop, mine was more a gradual decline in its functionality, I then encountered problems getting on to the net.

I did a system restore to manufacturers orginal settings, not sure, but on mine, i had to press F8 on the start up, after that it's all quite straight forward, just make sure you back up everything, has it will all be gone once you reset.

Rob.

Might be simple like someone removed the touchpad drivers, or the background application. Try going to the Tosh site and downloading the driver programs for the touch pad and install them again.

[Richie]

look for a blue symbal that look a bit like a keyboard on the Fn blue keys...

it might have been disabled...

To see if you have the touchpad enabled, hold the Fn key and press F9. The combination Fn-F9 locks and unlocks the touchpad. If pressing Fn-F9 once, twice, thrice does not seem to lock/unlock your touchpad.. then you might not have the Toshiba hotkeys working or enabled.

Hth's

[Spiderman]

I know you can find the settings for most "pointers" mice or pads in the Control Panel section somewhere. Have a look there and see if its been disabled by accident or something.

On some models of lap top is the button, switching the touchpade off. So may be she pushed it?

My lad had a similar issue with his laptop (not a Toshiba) where the touchpad wouldn't work. Powered it down, removed the battery, hold the power button down for 15 seconds, reconnect the battery and powered it back up - works normally again.