This is the first time I've ever tried to install a Linux distro in my PC. I have used Linux already, but that was some years ago and it was a really ugly distro made for schools, so I thought that Linux was s*** and just stuck to Windows. A few days ago I found out about Ubuntu, and decided I would give it a try.
Since my computer DVD port won't open, I decided to use a USB drive. My first try was using Universal USB Installer. The process went fairly quickly in this old 2006 PC and I thought I would just plug it in, choose USB-HDD as boot and everything would work fine. Unfortunately, I got an error saying that something called syslinux was missing, so I just restarted the computer, booted into Windows XP and did some research.
I used WinMD5Sum on my .iso and it was OK. I tried renaming isolinux, isolinux.bin and isolinux.cfg to syslinux, syslinux.bin and syslinux.cfg, but still no luck. So I thought my computer just wouldn't boot from FAT32, and since it was not formatting things properly, I used my cousin's Windows 8.1 machine, but I soon found out I couldn't format in FAT16, because the pendrive is 8GB. So I formatted it in NTFS because someone said it worked.
I then did the process again with Universal USB Installer, but now, instead of giving me the syslinux error, it just booted straight to Windows, even if I choose USB-HDD. Then I tried UNetbootin and same problem. As I type this in, I'm doing the process one more time in FAT32 now using Universal USB Installer, because at least that gave me some sign of life. Please, anyone that has some experience with Ubuntu, help me. I have to quickly get rid of the Windows XP in this machine because it's so full of crap, it's even scary to use.