We need help installing from USB on a Macbook Pro

[butterbridge]

My friend's Macbook Pro is having issues. It can't start up anymore, the Mac OS seems to be hung up on something during startup, so I suggested we install Ubuntu on it. Every thing I google just tells me how to create the ubuntu boot usb on a mac, instal some application in mac to make it boot to USB or they simply say hold the option key at startup on the mac and select the usb drive.
The problem is, we can't. The mac will just sit there at a blank gray screen til hell freezes over. It won't continue on to the boot device select screen.
Is there any other way to force it to boot from USB? Or access the BIOS to change the boot device priority?
-Ed

[crouchingpenguin]

i have a slimilar problem. nothing to do with ubuntu at all, but im trying to do a usb boot and nuke on my macbook black. have dban properly set up with unetbootin, but the macbook wont offer the usb as a boot option. there has to be a backdoor! someone please help!

[alwayshere]

here is a how to Ihave not tried it https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBook

but i do have a macbook 1.1 running ubuntu 8.04 lts good as.