My laptop keyboard is screwed up - tried to add an external through a usb port - bad keys on laptop keyboard take priority over external keyboard - tried to uninstall laptop keyboard, but system requests reboot to finish - after reboot system "finds" laptop keyboard and reinstalls - any ideas?

What brand laptop? Does it have an external keyboard port? Plugging a keyboard into the external port should disable the system kyboard.

Both will work, you can't disable the laptop primary keyboard.
Unless you physically go into device manager and disable the device, but it will effect the external keyboard as well.