[Leclair]

can you manually boot from the internal SSD via Boot Maintenance Manager -> Boot From File -> <first SATA partition> -> EFI -> BOOT -> bootx64.efi ?

If not, that would indicate a bad install somehow - but you said the installer succeeds?

When I try that, there is nothing in the SATA partition. 

At first I thought the install succeeded, but I've now realized that it installed on the USB stick and is running from there. And every time I reboot, LibreElec re-installs on the USB and I start from scratch again. 

I've tried with Ubuntu installer as well. Same thing happens. Runs from the USB stick. Tried with ChromeOS recovery, but it crashes every time, but I believe I read somewhere that ChromeOS wouldn't work anyway.

When I boot with the USB stick in, I get the screen that says to type 'live or run' or wait for installer to begin. I've done all 3 and the same thing happens every time. LibreElec installs and then runs from the USB.