i'm not sure if anyone will be able to help me with this one.... I have a Toshiba Tecra laptop. Every now and then the mouse stops working and the pointer disappears either to the bottom left(near the start button) or the top right hand corner. I have tried plugging a new mouse in and this does the same. Any ideas?

It is normal for the pointer to move off the screen to the right and to the bottom but I assume you mean that it will not come back?

Does this happen with the touch pad as well?

Does the laptop freeze at this point? Do you have to restart the laptop? You say "every now and then" ... Is this often? Is this a new problem? Any new hardware/software installed?

Check your mouse settings via start Control Panel | Mouse | Pointer Options

If unclicked try clicking:

Enhance pointer precision

Automatically move the pointer to the default button in a dialog box

Show location of pointer when I press the CTRL key
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Also check start Control Panel | Display | Settings

Are you setup to run multiple monitors?
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Also: look in your Event viewer: rt. click My Computer then click Manage then Event Viewer.
Or: Administrative Tools/Event Viewer or Start/Run/ eventvwr
Open the system as well as the application tabs & look for X errors. Click error line for details.
Post back the source & event id & Description especially of errors that seem to coincide with this issue.
Also check the Information lines that might coincide with this issue.

How to view and manage event logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP

Thanks for that, i've changed the settings so i'll see how it goes. It was really bad yesterday (i only bought it on Sat. it's a refurbished laptop) but seems to have got better.
Thanks again!!