Hand Rail Hell Redux

I had thought I had a good work around for our basement hand rail problems. I had inserted a piece of wood behind the drywall. Then I screwed the brackets into that piece of wood. The top of the hand rail was secure. It was good times until the middle bracket broke. This made the middle of the rail wobbly. Then the top brackets started coming undone.

I went to the store and purchased a replacement bracket. Problem was that I could not get the old broken bracket out of the wall. The screws had weird heads. They did not seem to be Philips head or flat head screws. There were some sort of star pattern. I had one tiny star screw driver. But it could not remove the screws.

I ended up just trying to re-tape the broken bracket with duct tape. It is holding for now. I really need my busy handyman to come and provide a permanent solution. Not sure if we need more brackets that tie into the studs behind the drywall, or something more extreme. I am just tired of this rail getting broken. The whole family relies on it.