Touchpad Dead

The other day my touchpad died. The mouse doesnt move and neither button works. It was just a random thing to my knowledge, I just tried to use it and it didnt work. For now I am just using an external mouse but I would like to fix the problem. I reinstalled the drivers and that did not help. When I booted Fedora Core after that it said that the mouse was not found. Im fairly certain it is a hardware failure and not software. I really dont feel like spending the $159 minumum or whatever it is for out of warrenty service. If you have any ideas on how to fix it or what may be wrong with it let me know. How hard would it be to get another one and replace the current one? Im sure I could do it if it wasnt to difficult because I am a second year computer engineering major. I just dont know how to go about getting it fixed without spending a lot of money that I dont have right now because my school is taking it all, lol. Anyway let me know. Thanks.

 

System Info

Inspiron 6000

Windows XP + Fedora Core 6

2gb memory

100gb 7200rpm hd