HP Compaq 610 touchpad stopped working

[gavins38]

One of my schools has a HP Compaq 610 laptop and the touchpad has stopped working on it. USB mice work fine but just not the touchpad. There's no indication on the F keys as to whether one of them enables/disables the mouse and I've tried all of them unsuccessfully. HP seems to have no documention to indicate that an F key does turn on/off the touchpad.

 

As part of upgrades to the schools laptops I've just reimaged it with Windows 7, so any pre-existing corrupted drivers can be discounted as I've reinstalled all drivers fresh. In Device Manager the touchpad appears and is working properly but in the Synaptics tool tab there is nothing detected. I've run out of ideas, Google has failed me and HP won't offer me any support because the laptop is now out of it's warranty period.

 

Does this sound like a hardware fault or can anyone suggest something I've missed?

[difinity]

To find out if its a hardware fault boot the laptop from a linux boot disc. This will tell you if its o/s or hardware.