Synaptics Touchpad stopped working

[swcomm]

Have a 2 week old Compaq Presario CQ50-210US Notebook PC. Touchpad was working fine yesterday morning, stopped working yesterday evening. No new software to cause any conflicts has been installed between yesterday a.m. and yesterday p.m.; have downloaded and uninstalled/reinstalled drivers 3 times.  Nothing.  How am I supposed to fix this? 

[CorMit]

Hello swcomm,

Make sure the light above the touchpad is BLUE instead or ORANGE/RED, there is a tiny button there that will stop the touchpad from functioning.

[swcomm]

It is. When I go to Control Panel > Mouse, there is nothing listed under Hardware, and under Device Settings, nothing is showing as enabled, and there is no way for me to enable anything.

[CorMit]

Go to Start>All Programs>Recovery Manager>Recovery Manager

Then in the Recovery Manager go to Advanced Option>Hardware/Driver Reinstallation>Next>Next>Select a Driver>and Click Next then restart the computer and see if it starts functioning are you using an externaly mouse if so unplug it when the computer restarts?

[swcomm]

Nope.  Did recovery, system says all is OK, reboot, no mouse.  Have been using external mouse, but have been disconnecting it during all the reinstallation reboots.  Still nothing showing up for Hardware or Device in control panel.

[CorMit]

well if its still not seeing the mouse after reinstalling all drivers and software for Synaptics .. and if you have done a RECOVERY I would say the touchpad became unattached from the System Board .. and probably need to be serviced or taken back to the store if its a few days old .. less then 14 (most stores return policy) ...?

[swcomm]

Thanks very much for your help.  Found the error code (Problem 24) and Googled it a  bit.  I think it's a Vista problem - I don't have time tonight to look into it any further, but if I understand what I've found, something with Windows is preventing the Synaptics software from running.  The driver is there and installed correctly, but Windows won't let the software actually run.  Nice, huh.  

[CorMit]

I was looking a little bit on that Error 24, and it seems to go away with the Default windows driver installed but you then get Error 10 .. so thats just as bad, then when you install the correct driver it goes back to being a Error 24 .. lol  .... that is very strange ... post back if you find a solution or if you need any more help ... i will post back occasionally if I find anything

[swcomm]

I've come to the conclusion that the problem is most likely due to a Windows Defender update that was automatically installed the same evening I began having problems.  But apparently, one isn't able to remove Windows Defender updates - thanks, MS. Am trying to do a system restore to prior that date, but the restore keeps failing (3x) - now I see why Vista has such bad reviews. 

There's really no other explanation for the touchpad working in the morning, then failing to work in the evening, unless your original thought that the hardware itself is broken/failing is correct.  I'll keep plugging away and will post the fix if I ever find it.  And if you run across something, please let me know.  Thanks.

[CorMit]

Window Defender updates are mixed in with Windows Updates, if you check in Control Panel > Program and Features > Uninstall a Program ...

On the Left Side of the Window, click Remove Updates/Uninstall Updates then browse through there and remove the defender updates