Problem Installing Solus On A New (To Me) Computer

brent No, but when I researched what happens when you install anything extra in a live session before installing the distro the image is for, every answer I found said the additions were not included during the install. Yes, I may end trying that (the worst I'll do is waste some time, I assume) but figured before I wasted any time I ought to see if anyone else knew more about this.

zmaint Since gparted doesn't 'see' the drive either, I can't format it. Already tried that.

Yes, I may end up going with your Plan B. Although with my age and eyesight, I don't know if I want to tackle installing a new drive myself. I'd have to look up the process for the Nitro 5; I do know there are models where the task isn't so difficult. A quick look a the case makes me suspect this may not be one of the easy ones, although I'd have to research what's involved to be sure. Anyway, if I can't do any better, I'll certainly try your suggestion. Have to save up for that, though.

Both for reasons of speed (I'm writing this on an ancient Dell which is having a hard time running Lubuntu), cost, and the fact I prefer to learn how to get around the obstacles I encounter because by the end of that process, I'm still hoping someone might know more about this issue.

Either way, I do appreciate the suggestion. It's one I might not have thought of myself. So far, it also sounds as if it may be the way I have to go.

brent My plan was to nuke Windows anyway. When I had a dual boot system, I never used Windows 10 anyway. Usually, from a live image, I get the option to install to the existing Windows partition, which usually works. Then of course I had to try to wipe the partition, format it, etc, but gparted would not admit there was another device in the system at all, just the USB I had the live image on.

Yes, I'm hoping someone else might know something about this.

zmaint Yes, the BIOS shows there is a hard drive in there. It's just that the live session can't find it. Trying to delete the secure boot key sounds as if it won't hurt anything. I'm also going to give my other idea a try, just to see what happens. If I waste time, then I do. At least I'll have a bit more experience. Just makes more sense to find out as much as I can before I try ideas which are far out there. (Assuming the live session detects there is an available driver to be added, I'll also have more information about that, even if the driver "disappears" during the install process.)

Axios Okay, thank you. I'm going to give your advice a try a bit later. Once I have some answers, then I'll post whatever I learn here. Making Windows unhappy doesn't bother me at all. When I get my hands on any computer with Windows installed, it only stays there until I've replaced it with Linux.

Axios I did as you suggested. Solus Plasma is now working on my Acer.
One small fly in the ointment is it does not seem to want to boot into the BIOS. At the moment, I would only do this to clear up one very minor issue (an annoying password demand before the machine will boot at all). So I'm not going to worry about it until I have time to look into that. At least the machine is working. Thank you.

brent On the Satelite. no. Once I had it booting from USB, I was good to go.
As far as this machine, the ESC key brings up the same prompt to boot into the BIOS, but then nothing happens when I choose that. It just sits there with a blank screen until I power down. Annoying, but the machine is working for now. So I'm using it in preference to the ancient one running Lubuntu which didn't even have space for all my files while I take care of a few things I need to, then try to figure out what happened.