Comment 8 for bug 129477

I'm skeptical. I have a Dell 1420 for which the touchpad works just fine, for both Feisty and Gutsy. This is one of the Ubuntu certified Dell platforms. I find it hard to believe that no one else has reported a problem like this.

Is this a factory install (plus archive updates) ?
run 'sudo dmidecode' and look for 'BIOS Information'. It should be at least 'Release Date: 05/23/2007'

I'm more inclined to believe that you have a hardware problem. In the meantime I'm closing this bug report since I do not think it is software related.