Touchpad issues Aspire e5-511 - tried the regular things

Hey, I know this question has been asked about a million times, but I've tried every solution I can find with no wins.

My father's laptop is an Aspire E5-511 which came with Win 8 and was upgraded to Win 10 (current OS) and was working fine until the HDD crashed and needed replacing. No big deal. Usually. Since the replacement, the touchpad simply doesn't work. Before listing the usual, here's what I've tried:
FN + F7.
Updating the BIOS to version 1.10 with the touchpad set to basic.
Reinstalling windows with the Win 10 drivers from the support site.
Reinstalling windows with the Win 8 drivers in compatibility mode.
Replacing the touchpad and touchpad cable.
Going back to Win 8 with the drivers from the support site.

None of it is working and I'm losing patience with this thing, but I know he can't really afford a new laptop at the moment, especially since this one is perfectly good aside from the touchpad. I'm just looking for any ideas I haven't tried yet. If it was my own laptop, I'd just survive without the touchpad, but he uses his laptop on the go a lot and doesn't want the inconvenience of a USB mouse.

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Kinking

Did you tried them one at a time?
Reinstall Windows using f12,
Go to Acer website and download the drivers and install all of them and simultaneously press fn + f7

samvander

Yes, I tried them all one at a time and several variations.

Kinking

Go to device manager and find mouse setting or so and see if it's listed

samvander

It's not listed. If I have advanced mode active in the bios, an I2C device is listed with an error where it says it failed to get a descriptor. With basic mode active I don't even have that.

Kinking

Install windows in UEFI instead of legacy, download the drivers from acer website and install, turn on your mouse if it's not active.

samvander

I am using UEFI. I tried legacy as an alternative in case that somehow fixed it, but switched back to UEFI.

JackE

You might first try DriverBooster or similar freeware driver update tools for a compatible update. If they don't work, there are other options to try but might not be free. Jack E/NJ

https://www.iobit.com/en/driver-booster.php
https://www.lifewire.com/free-driver-updater-tools-2619206