Installation Troubles...

Hi,
Just received a refurbished Lenovo ThinkCentre M710q and am working on installing the latest "LinuxCNC 2.9.4 Debian 12 Bookworm PREEMPT-RT ISO".  Got it flashed to USB via balenaEtcher and can run the installer and the live version.  With the installer, I make it to the partitioning section and it fails with:  "The ext4 filesystem creation in partition #1 of SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda) failed."  I'm hoping someone knows the magic sauce to get this machine running...

I have been using the default guided steps (Guided - use entire disk) for partitioning, not trying to do anything fancy.

In the BIOS I have set the following:
Security/Secure Boot = disabled
Startup/CMS = enabled
Startup/Boot Mode = Legacy Only (options are "Auto" or "UEFI Only")

I also tried disabling all the "Intel(R) Manageability", "Intel(R) Software Guard Extensions", "Intel(R) SIPP Support" in the Advanced section.  As an aside, should I disable "Turbo Mode" in the "Advanced/CPU Setup" section?

In the live session I can get to "GParted", should I try partitioning the drive there before running the installer or is this a bad idea?  I was hesitant to try that...

I'm not sure how to proceed, any advice is welcome.
Thanks
Tom

PS/FWIW I recently installed LinuxCNC to a laptop using ISO/balenaEtcher with no problems (other than the laptop not being suitable).

This worked. I switched it to "UEFI only" and I got a different prompt in the installation. I still had to fight the process a bit, had to return to Discover disks, but it finally went through. Thanks for ending my hours of frustration