If it were me, I'd boot into a Try Ubuntu environment and see if that fixes the issue. If it doesn't, then a fresh reinstall isn't likely to fix it.
Almost always, touchpads and mice appear as USB devices, so you can disable them. Certainly you can disable the touchpad in the BIOS and use a mouse instead.
Have you tried using a different touchpad driver and manually making the settings you desire using Synapse? I haven't set up my touchpads in a few years and Synapse was the program that allowed more detailed control. At login for a local/console GUI session, I have this setup:
Code:
synclient AreaRightEdge=850 &
synclient AreaLeftEdge=50 &
synclient TapButton1=1 &
synclient TapButton2=3 &
synclient TapButton3=2 &
This only works with touchpads that are supported. Synapse may be out of favor these days. IDK.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Touchpad_Synaptics has more details and says most ALPS are included.
I get the feeling none of this works with Wayland, so that would be the first thing to check. Are you using Wayland or X11?