Everything was working fine when my laptop got shut down after a battery failure. Now, on restarting, the computer hangs at the login screen. If I close the lid and reopen it, the keyboard seems to work and I can enter password and login, but the touchpad doesn't work at all and all the functions that were to be performed while holding the function key seems to happen automatically (For eg. when I press 0, another key gets typed).

Perhaps the drivers are't getting loaded properly, I don't know. The same story is there no matter how many times I restart. I am using Ubuntu 9.10 and the laptop is Dell Vostro 1525

Have you tried System>Preferences>Keyboard
You can select the type of keyboard you have.
The touchpad is in System>Prefences>Mouse

What should I change in the mouse settings ? Everything is already properly set, just that the touchpad and the clicks are not working. They were perfectly working when the system was shut down as I told you. Also, the keyboard selected is the normal one, why is the function key already activated ?

The basic problem is that on restarting the laptop, it hangs on the login screen (after the boot menu, everything). Only when I close and open the lid, does the keyboard start working (dysfunctionally, though) and the touchpad doesn't work