I have a Toshiba Satellite S855D-S5120 with no current OS installed. I'm using Ubuntu 14.04.3 on a USB 2.0 jump drive. I followed the instructions from the Ubuntu website to no avail. Right now I have just the .iso on the jump drive. I adjusted the boot order to boot from the USB. All I'm getting is a loop of the splash screen and a black screen. When the black screen comes up the USB light comes on. When the splash screen loops back the USB light vanishes. It's like the computer is trying to access the .iso but can't (or won't). Did I screw up the instructions or is it my laptop that is screwing up? I've seriously played with every boot configuration detail in the BIOS menu and redownloaded the .iso twice. The MD5 checks out every time. I'm clueless at this point.
UPDATE: Tried UnetBootin to create a live USB instead of direct installation to the HDD. Same outcome. I tried reformatting the USB and re-running UnetBootin. Again, same outcome. I'm going to try Zorin and Debian to see if I can get anything at all to work.
