Had the same problem occur when I was try to disable the tapping function on the touch pad (which I cannot seem to be able to do, nothing seems to work). I had to use a USB mouse and do a system restore to get back the touch pad mouse.

Hi smallcpa,

I would suggest you to uninstall the touchpad on the system again. Please follow the steps mentioned below to uninstall the touchpad.

1. Press Windows Key on the keyboard and Start typing devmgmt.msc and then press enter.
2. Select the touchpad device under Mice and other pointing devices and right click on it
3. Now select properties.
4. In the properties window, under Driver tab, click on Uninstall button.
5. Check “Delete the driver software for this device.”
6. You want to delete the driver click OK.
7. After the uninstall finishes restart the system. Then reinstall the touchpad on the system for issue resolution. Then download the Touchpad driver from ‘Mouse, Keyboard & Input Devices’ section onto the system and install it.

http://dell.to/ZaQuel

Note: You may have to use external mouse on the system to perform the above steps.

Please let me know if this helps.

Hi

Thanks for that. I started the steps but there is a problem: when I get to step 4. there is no Driver tab in the properties box that opens...

Hi smallcpa,

If you are not able to find the uninstall option on the drivers tab. You can select the touchpad device under Mice and other pointing devices and right click on it. Click on uninstall and follow the further steps for uninstalling the touchpad.

Can you or a Dell affiliate please share the link?

I was sent the following links

Please download Touchpad drivers and BIOS:

http://tinyurl.com/mbjvf6x

http://tinyurl.com/m6fs4ef

I only downloaded and re-installed the touchpad drivers.

Have to say that it has happened a couple more times since, which is frankly unacceptable...