Downloading Ubuntu 14.04 BIOS/UEFI problem

I'm installing ubuntu and it seems I cannot get it to recognize windows 7. My laptop is a dv6tqe-7000 purchased approximately December of 2012. I have ubuntu's iso file burned onto a DVD which boots in place of my hard drive when I have it inserted. When ubuntu boots from it, it shows a black, not purple screen. Based on some research I think it might be because windows 7 boots in bios/legacy mode while ubuntu boots in uefi mode. However, I'm not sure how I can fix this problem. I've gone into my computer's BIOS and there isn't any option that changes priority between UEFI and BIOS. The version of ubuntu I download is not super important, so it there's any other versions of ubuntu that would work, that is something I can consider.

An image I took of my bios menu that shows boot options is here: imgur: the simple image sharer The black and gray items I cannot select, I can only change items in blue.

Alternatively, I also happen to have a 1TB external hard drive with just pretty much a windows backup on it. Is it possible for me to partition that drive instead and install ubuntu on the external hard drive? If it is possible, how would I accomplish that?

Thanks everyone!

 

You say the Ubuntu DVD won't recognize Windows 7 but your description sounds like the Ubuntu DVD is not fully booting. If that is true(not fully booting), I know that I've had problems with Ubuntu boot DVDs being sensitive to video hardware and they hang when booting.
If you can get the Ubunutu DVD to fully boot in some sort of "safe" mode or "low video" mode, that might tell you if it's just having a problem initializing the video hardware or starting X.

AN

 

I've done a little bit more to see what happens, and I've managed to get it to launch to the ubuntu desktop with the install menu. Also, it turns out that my computer seems to have two separate pre-OS boot menus. One is F9 and lets you choose what to boot from (w/ options of efi file, DVD-ROM, or hard drive) and the other (F10) has the actual options to configure it. I had some problems with booting because it would seem to always go into UEFI mode, but from the F9 menu, I booted the DVD with Ubuntu and it entered into a purple screen then booted into ubuntu with the installation menu. Great thing is, it managed to recognize windows 7! I don't know if this means it is in BIOS/legacy, but at least it works, kinda. However, navigating to the menu resulted in these options:

This computer currently has Windows 7 on it. What would you like to do?

-Install Ubuntu inside Windows 7

-Replace Windows 7 with Ubuntu

-(encrypt and LVM options are grayed out)

-Something Else

Why would there not be a menu option to install Ubuntu alongside windows 7?

Picture with disk management on it if it helps: imgur: the simple image sharer


EDIT: I've solved the problem. I just deleted the "system" partition on my hard drive because it already had 4 logical partitions. Doing that allowed ubuntu to be installed on a fourth partition.