Disable Touchpad on Inspiron 9300

I have searched these forums and all over the net with no luck on how to disable my touchpad on my Inspiron 9300. I even called Dell on this issue. They had me look for options in control panel, uninstall/ install divers, check settings in the BIOS, blah, blah, blah. They pretty much told me to do all the things I already did. Their final words of wisdom to correct the problem, also to get me off the phone after 2 hours with nothing accomplished, were to reformat my hard drive and do a fresh install of windows to make sure the "native controller" is installed correctly. I'm far from an expert (neither was the support tech I was speaking with based on the responses I got) but I believe they were referring to some IDE drivers. They said the only way to correct the problem was to do this "fresh install". Then with that done there would be an option in control panel under mouse properties to shut off the touchpad. I just agreed with them for the time being to get off the phone because I was really getting annoyed at that point. I have researched this and it seems I am not the only one who can't find an option to shut off the touchpad. It seems to be a very common thing, but with no real answer posted anywhere of course. I don't want to go through the trouble of backing everything up, reformatting, and being left with the same problem. Can anyone please shed some light on this or refer me to someone/ where that can? Thanks.

 

As far as I know, the touchpad cannot de disabled. I know... it stinks, but that seems to be the answer as of now. There could be a third party application that could cut it off.

 

Thanks for the info. If anyone knows of a third party application that would be greatly appreciated. The reason I want to sometimes disable the touchpad is because I use a Logitech MX1000. When I try to install the drivers for the MX1000 it detects the touchpad and wont install correctly due to the fact it does not want to mess with the touchpad's settings. I see no other way around this. I don't want to physically disconnect the touchpad because when I'm mobile I need it and don't want to have to reconnect it. That would be crazy. Thanks to anyone with some input.

 

ccbo01 is right, you can't disable it completely. Have you tried adjust the sensitivity settings (control panel-->mouse-->touch pad). That's the best solution I can think of.

SG

 

red, the drivers shouldn't conflict. I have the logitech lx700 keyboard/mouse and the logitech cordless optical mouse for notebooks. i have no conflicting problems with the keyboard or mouse plugged in. I didn't even install the drivers for neither product. XP picked up the devices and all the functions of both devices (with an exception of some of the odd stuff of the keyboard)

 

There is a conflict with the drivers or what appears to be. It even says so. I tried messing with the sensitivity but to no avail. The problem still exists.

 

try uninstalling the logitech software, then plug up the mouse and see what happens

 

okay it helps for me to read the whole problem...sorry about my earlier post.

I've had a similar problem to this. When i use my external mouse it takes place of my touchpad driver and causes problem.

I would try ccbr01's suggestion. If the logitech will work without the software, then that would probably be the best solution. Another idea is to uninstall your touchpad driver (touchpad will still work), and then you should be able to install your logitech software without any conflicts.