touchpad problem on 9.04 to 9.10 upgrade

[don fisher]

I have a Dell 1721 with a synaptics touchpad. In the past I ave been 
able to use the touchpad without problems. When I run the bootonly 
Ubuntu from CD, the touchpad operates. After my upgrade to 9.10 I 
receive the following in /var/log/Xorg.0.log

(II) config/hal: Adding input device AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint
(II) LoadModule: "synaptics"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/input//synaptics_drv.so
(II) Module synaptics: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
	compiled for 1.6.4, module version = 1.1.2
	Module class: X.Org XInput Driver
	ABI class: X.Org XInput driver, version 4.0
(II) Synaptics touchpad driver version 1.1.2
AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint The /dev/input/event* device nodes seem to be 
missing
(**) Option "Device" "/dev/event9"
Query no Synaptics: 000000
(--) AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint: no supported touchpad found
(EE) AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint Unable to query/initialize Synaptics hardware.
(EE) PreInit failed for input device "AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint"
(II) UnloadModule: "synaptics"

The events are mow in /dev rather than /dev/input/event.

Any idea on what is confused? I am new with Hal.

don