Comment 5 for bug 2031061

I have the exact same model (ec-1052ax). I have been facing this issue on this lappy since years. This issue isn't ubuntu specific but is present on almost every distro out there but not on windows. Here's a workaround to this issue that works everytime.

While booting press F9 that brings up a screen where u can choose your boot device. Choose the boot device you boot from here.

Booting using this method will cause the Linux distro you use to detect your touchpad. This is the reason why running Live USB fixed issue for @spinthecrow temporarily btw. It wasn't live USB but selecting his boot device(either through F9 or some other method) that fixed it. I am not sure how to fix this issue but maybe this workaround would provide someone more insight as to what was the issue.

PS. Posting this on HP forums yielded the response, "HP doesn't support Linux" from their team.