After further #troubleshooting and #testing, I switched back from #UEFI to #BIOS and was able to set the USB optical drive as the primary boot device. I grabbed my trusty #Debian 13 netinstall and away I went!
Well, I didn't get *too* far. Hell, I didn't even get off the runway. The #laptop complained about a missing hard drive. Oh boy. I acknowledged the error and proceeded. The Debian installer displayed the initial menu. I chose "Install" and KA-POW! It failed miserably with this error.
So, in conclusion two things are true:
1.) This laptop has officially kicked the bucket.
2.) I like pain.






