Acer Aspire 5100 synaptic touch pad

I am running vista home premium, and have had no problems, but yesterday, the
synaptics touch pad stopped working, so i have to use a usb mouse all the
time.
I have installed the latest drivers from Acer, to no avail.
does anyone know how I get to the system files, that allow you to
enable/disable, so I can chack if the problem lies there.
The touch pad has some responce on start up, but then stops completely.
I had used registry first aid, right before it stopped working, but I have
since restored all reg files.
Any suggestions would be appreciated, as I dont really want to do a clean
install.
I have already done an upgrade install, but this didnt fix it.
Regards Steve

In the mouse settings in the Control Panel click on the Device Settings tab
and make sure the touchpad is enabled.

the same thing happened to me and i did all what you did. come to find out,
my daughter happened to hit the function key (Fn) and F7, which disables the
touchpad.

I have been killing myself for the last 3 hours installing and
uninstalling (on my ACER 5570) trying to find out what the problem was
(I thought I had messed something up when I tried to hook up my
SANDISK U3 drive which did not work) ALL Along it was FN F7!!! It
now works, Steve I hope that is you problem...easy fix

I hope I did not mess anything else up with my messing around.

[Serraphyna]

thank you this was helpfull I had already done a hard install cause my windows defender had stopped working too. so a fresh restart for me but anyway that was my problem was the fn key with the f7 key works great now. thanks guys I was about to toss this piece de la sheet out the dang window till I read this. you all are a life saver