I am totally unable to install any flavor of Linux on my lenovo Y500.
TL;DR:
- with EFI on -> cannot even access installer
- with legacy - > installer runs fine, but installed OS never boots
Long Version:
It is going to be hard to recap what I did, because I tried so many things, but here is the gist of it:
EFI mode (secure boot disabled):
Trial #1
- ubuntu 12.10 x64 & Mint 14 x64
- boot from usb
- see screen with choices
- pick "try ubuntu"
- get black screen
Trial #2
- ubuntu 12.10 x64 & Mint 14 x64
- boot from usb
- see screen with choices
- press "e" to enter edit mode
- remove "quiet splash"
- replace with "nomodeset"
- end up on the command line with an error message from x server: "no screen found"
- try fiddling around with xorg.conf to no avail
Trial #3
- Arch Linux Live USB EFI mode
- no boot
Trial #4
- ubuntu 12.10 x64 & Mint 14 x64
- set "e" to enter edit mode in menu
- add acpi=off
- end up with "(initramfs) unable to find a medium" message
Trial #5
- same as above
- set SATA mode to legacy (it was AHCI)
- error loop that says something along the lines of "ata1.00: hard resetting link"
Legacy Mode
Trial #1
- ubuntu 12.10 x64 & Mint 14 x64
- USB boot
- Everything seems to work
- Proceed to normal install (picks SSD drive by default)
- Everything seems to work
- reboot
- blank screen
- reboot with "shift" pressed
- see message "grub loading." and nothing
- As per advised on Ubuntu's community EFI page, run boot-repair
- same results
- run boot-repair again
- same results
Trial #2
- ubuntu 12.10 x64 & Mint 14 x64
- same as above, but pick 1T HDD as target install
- same results
Trial #3
- create a /boot partition on the SSD
- install on SSD
- same results ("grub loading.")
- run boot repair twice
- same results
Trial #4
- create a GPT filesystem on HDD
- create a /boot partition on the HDD
- install on HDD
- same results as above
Trial #5
- install ubuntu on HDD
- install boot on all drives (HDD & SSD)
- same results
Trials #6
- install Arch on SSD
- no boot loader found
Notes:
- Every step has been tried with multiple USBs.
- All isos' MD5Sums have been verified
- LiveUSBs have been created both through ubuntu's embedded app and unetbootin (save for Arch's live USB which was created by DDing the iso as per advised in the Arch wiki)
- I have wiped out windows in my first trials, and I don't care, I am never going to use it. I don't want to dual-boot. I just want Ubuntu or Mint or Arch
- as far as I can remember (it gets hard after 50+ trials), I tried every option with sata mode IDE or normal. Not sure though.
I've also tried numerous other things that I can't recall right now.
All in all I've been giving this 3 to 5 hours a day for a week and a half to absolutely no avail.
I am extremely disappointed as this is my first Lenovo and word is Lenovo is Linux-friendly...I have never spent more than an hour installing linux on any machine.
What's even more frustrating is that it seems to be working for some people, and I can't find any hint telling me how they managed. I wrote to one guy who posted a serie of youtube videos about how to get everything working perfectly on the Y500, and he told me he just installed mint without any problems. Might be I am a particular case because I have the SLI version of the Y500.
If anyone has pointers, incomplete solutions, ideas, black magic, I'll be forever in debt.
Thank you
P.S: This question, afaik, is not a duplicate of an existing question. I've scoured all questions containing "lenovo" and "install", and none applies to me.