I seem to have tried all the various suggested methods for installing ubuntu on a mbp, but can't seem to get anything that works and was wondering if anyone has run into any new problems with the latest non-retina models?

I have a core i7 in my macbook, and model identifier is MacBookPro9,2. I have partitioned my HD using disk utility and have 700gig free space ready for the install (I haven't removed OSX Lion, it is still there in a 50gig partition).

Problem:

I am just getting a blank screen with a blinking cursor (unresponsive) in the top left whenever I boot from the disk. I left it for 20 minutes and nothing ever happened. This was without any boot manager, just holding "c" on startup.

Attempted remedies:

• I have downloaded the 64 ubuntu iso from their site 3 times now and burned 4 separate discs to rule out some kind of corruption or burn error. I burned one in OSX Lion 10.7.4 and 3 on my windows 7 pc.

• I tried holding "alt" instead and then navigating to the windows disc to boot. Same thing happens, blank blinking unresponsive cursor. I also tried going to the EFI disc which actually brings up a menu (after saying "error prefix is not set") asking if I want to install ubuntu, test for errors or partition. All three options lead me to an unresponsive blank screen (some without cursors).

• I downloaded and installed rEFIt and if I hold "alt" on startup a linux penguin (Boot Linux from CD) appears in my boot options, along with the apple boot, and two others that I'm not sure of: "Boot EFI\boto\bootx64.efi from" and "Boot Legacy OS from". The "Boot Linux from CD" just takes me to the blank blinking cursor screen; again, I left if for 10+ minutes and nothing.

• I heard that the detection of the graphics card might be a problem and that I need change to nomodeset, but I have tried pressing F6 in all of the boot menus listed above and no options appear.

Does anyone have any other suggested routes or can you see what I might have done wrong?