Can't Even Try Ubuntu Due to error: failure reading sector 0x5b500 from 'hd1'

Solution 1:

I too saw the error reading from sector 0x5b500, with the 64b version of 12.10. It seems the support for UEFI (a BIOS replacement) is not yet complete.

I know of two solutions.

  1. If you want just Ubuntu, then enter your computer's firmware and switch from UEFI to legacy. Then use the normal installation process.

  2. If you want dual boot and the current OS uses EFI (which is probably your case), then you can switch to legacy only temporarily to install Ubuntu. You must setup the partitions manually. At the end you'll have to switch back to EFI: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI#Converting_Ubuntu_into_EFI_mode