Unable to install Ubuntu on MSI GT60

I had the same issue on my GT 60 20C and was able to get it to work after a little bit of work.

First, I created a bootable USB disk with the 13.1 installation. I was experiencing the black screen issue after the first purple screen from the bootable USB disk. To avoid that issue, press CTRL right when the screen first shows up. You should see the language selection screen and right after, mode options. Before installing, press F6 and select

nomodeset

This step is very important, the installation will not continue unless that step is executed. After the installation is complete, boot up again with with the USB disk. Select the "nomodeset" option again but this time boot up the live installation (Try Ubuntu...)

Download boot-repair utility. I was not able to follow the steps from the Ubuntu webpage (something broken about apt). I installed all the debian packages manually from the sourceforge website.

There, make sure that GRUB is on your Ubuntu partition and as an advanced option set as a kernel parameter "nomodeset"

Reboot your computer and now you should be good to go.

I had a similar problem with a Live USB created using UNebootin or Ubuntu Startup Disk Creator. I would get a list of options to boot into, but after selecting one, I kept getting a message like, "insert a boot device."

Then I created a live CD using Startup Disk Creator for KDE (usb-creator-kde) and this worked fine.

Also, someone mentioned that plugging the Live USB stick into a USB 2.0 port instead of a USB 3.0 port was helpful to them. (I'm not so sure about this because USB 3.0 is supposed to be backward compatible, but you might give it a shot).

Ok, here is another way...

1. Rename /EFI/BOOT folder to /EFI/Ubuntu in the USB.
2. Download refind bootloader (0.7.7.1..) and extract the refind folder which contains the refind_x64.efi, icons, drivers etc. to /EFI folder.
3. Rename /EFI/refind to /EFI/BOOT
4. Rename /EFI/BOOT/refind_x64.efi to /EFI/BOOT/BOOTx64.efi
5. Copy /EFI/BOOT/refind.conf-sample to /EFI/BOOT/refind.conf

6. Edit refind.conf file, comment all boot entries and add the following in the last...

   menuentry "Ubuntu" {  
           loader  /casper/vmlinuz.efi  
           icon    EFI/refind/icons/os_linux.icns  
           initrd  /casper/initrd.lz  
           options "root=PARTUUID=xxxx-xxxx rw rootfstype=vfat file=/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper add_efi_memmap"  
   } 
   

   Replace xxxx-xxxx with UID of USB drive.

Happy booting!