I'm currently running Windows 8 on an HP Pavilion g7 laptop and I tried installing Ubuntu 13.04 from my flash drive just recently.
Installation went as normal and I created a 50 GB partition for it. At the end it said I needed to reboot so I pressed OK. A few seconds later an error message popped up and said there was an error and I needed to reboot (or I could stay at the desktop and debug or something). I clicked stay at desktop but it kicked me out into a command line and I really couldn't do anything there so I just held the power button and shut it off. Now I have the partition made (it shows up in Windows as the G: drive), I just have no way to access it without booting from live disk/usb.
Is there some way I can pick which partition to boot from when I power my laptop on?
Edit: Don't know if it helps much but I remember my caps lock key flashing when I was stuck at the command line thing. (Maybe someone will know what I was at from this?)
Edit: i have a 500 GB disk, and I created the partition in the Ubuntu setup itself. I'm a little busy but I'll try a few of the suggestions in a little while and see how it goes