How to Unlock the Touchpad on a Toshiba Laptop
By Anne Hirsh
Updated September 28, 2017
The touchpad on your Toshiba laptop can be very useful, but some people find that it gets in the way while typing. Your wrists or palms may hit the touch pad, making the mouse jump to places in your document you do not want it to go. While using your touchpad to page through the laptops control panel to disable is easy, once the touchpad is disabled, you may be at a loss as to how to navigate through the computer system to turn it back on.
Without an External Mouse
Press and hold down the "FN" key.
Press "F9" and release both keys. This should re-enable your touch pad on any Toshiba laptop.
Press "F9" twice in a row if a single press does not re-enable the touchpad.
With External Mouse
Plug a USB mouse into a USB port in your computer. If the mouse has not been previously used on that computer, you may get a dialog box asking you to install the mouse driver.
Follow all onscreen prompts to install the mouse driver, if necessary, using the arrow keys or the "Tab" key to toggle between options and the "Enter" key to replace mouse clicks. Once the software is installed, the mouse will work in the same manner the touchpad did.
Click on "Start," then "Control panel." (For Windows XP you must click "Settings" before "Control panel"). Double-click "Mouse" or "Pointing devices" and select the "Touchpad on/off" or "Touch" tab.
Click the button by "Enable," then click "OK."
References
Writer Bio
Anne Hirsh has been writing and editing for over 10 years. She has hands-on experience in cooking, visual arts and theater as well as writing experience covering wellness and animal-related topics. She also has extensive research experience in marketing, small business, Web development and SEO. Hirsh has a bachelor's degree in technical theater and English and post-baccalaureate training in writing and computer software.