Quick question, I've been trying to install Ubuntu 18.04 on a laptop, used Rufus 3.1 to create the USB stick, the install fails with timezone errors, then some other error after partition options, then just completely hangs on detecting files systems and never installs (Never wipes the drive either as Windows still boots afterwards) So anyway after battling with different workarounds and tutorials to try and get it to install I gave up and tried Ubuntu 17.10.1, this installed first time fine The only difference during Rufus USB creation was with 17.10.1 it told me due to some syslinux version Rufus needed to download a couple of files before creating the USB stick, which I allowed, it does not ask me to download these files with 18.04, could that be the reason the install fails?
No. These files are only used for the very initial part of the boot (if you actually needed them, it would completely fail to boot) and are not used or even referenced at all by the installer, because they serve a purpose that has nothing to do with the installation process. Besides, even when Rufus copies them to the USB, they are not even used for booting if you have a UEFI system, only BIOS. Your problem has nothing to do with using Rufus.
Thanks, well no idea what is wrong with 18.04 then, tried different USB sticks, different USB ports, downloaded the ISO again incase of corruption, now just running an dist upgrade from inside of 17.10.1 instead
@Akeo Do you take requests? If so, I'd like a to be able to to add a bootable ISO to a HDD. I'm not talking about using a bootloader to chainload the iso image, no, but just extract the contents of the iso to hdd and make it bootable (the same way we make USB bootable now, but make it work with both internal and external HDDs). In the past, i used to use WINToBootic for this.
Internal/fixed drives might also be needed. There are some cases in which an external drive/usb appears as a fixed drive (as an example here, take SATA-to-USB converters, or USB memory sticks that use SATA-USB bridge, like the Corsair GTX series). I used to have these problems in the past.
Yes, I know. I wasn't actually sure if this had already been dealt with. The last time i tried this (a few years) it didn't work. Well, thanks for the though answer.