I just purchased an HP PC with Windows 10. I would like to put Ubuntu on it instead. I have installed Ubuntu hundreds of times and I approached this install the same way. I tried downloading Ubuntu from within Windows and burned it to a USB stick using Rufus. I was hoping this would work better. I was wrong.
I booted to the USB stick and I immediately got a bunch of errors and then the PC shutdown. Well, I tried this process again using my Ubuntu 18.04 machine with Etcher to burn the image to my USB stick. I plugged it back into my Windows machine and I got the same results as before.
I finally was able to get to the install screen after manually selecting the EFI in the boot options. I went through the install pretty good at first. I got to the part where you tell the installer to install updates and third party drivers. I selected the options and clicked continue. The problem starts on the next screen. Instead of giving me the option of how to partition and install Ubuntu, there is an empty box with a plus and minus sign and a button that says change.
There is also a drop down box for selecting the drive. Then there is the option to go back, quit or install. If you click install, it says I have to select a partition first but there is not any partitions listed. I clicked on the plus sign to see if I can create something but nothing ever happens. This is as far as I can get.
I really do not know what is going on and how to fix it. I have never had this much trouble before. Will someone please help me?
First step I suggest is going into your system BIOS and turn off SecureBoot (ie. UEFI). If there is an option to enable "Legacy Boot" turn that on. Then change the boot order of your devices to USB-->CD-->Hard Drive-->Network Boot or something like that. Just so long as it boots first to a USB device (if that's where you put your installation) and then CD/DVD Drive.
Then try your installation again. It should recognize your drives like normal.