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Thanks for your responses. They've proved very helpful.

It would appear I made no mistakes - other than trying to dual boot on an HP machine.
The ZDnet article pretty much covered everything I needed to know. It seems HP configure UEFI (an o/s in it's own right) in accordance with Macroshaft's wishes so that no matter what you do it will be ignored if there is a Win o/s available. It will always boot to this 1st. There were various options to try & get round this when similar occurs on other manufacturers machines but HP seem particularly defiant & just will not allow it. I tried them all.

The only 2 ways round this for HP are:
1) selecting another o/s from f9 when powering on (for HP 15 notebook - what I had been doing).
2) setting BIOS to boot from CD/USB as 1st option (which allows running a live USB stick / installing another o/s).

So it made no difference setting a onetime password (I did write it down), whatever that did or didn't accomplish it would be very short lived & reset almost immediately.

My solution was option 2, boot from USB (having disabled secure boot) then wipe the whole drive & install Ubuntu only.
I had the option to just wipe Ubuntu & reinstall but I was sure enough that this would produce the same result.
Macroshaft can take flying dodah as far as I'm concerned, I'm not that desperate to have dual boot. I just though it might be useful at some point but all it's done is remind why I came to Linux in the first place.

Thanks again.

After my recent escapades I bought a new (to me) laptop. Basically a more together version of the one I had (HP 15 notebook). As it came with Win10 I thought it would be useful to keep this available & so went for a dual boot option with Ubuntu 20.04.

I negotiated making a bootable USB stick. I changed the BIOS to boot 1st from CD/USB then inserted the media & followed the instructions.
I was prompted to make a 'one time password' to configure secure boot. I allocated 1/2 the 1Tb hard drive to Ubuntu. checked install updates & 3rd party software option. All was going well.

When prompted to restart at the end I was unsure when to remove the USB stick & didn't want to restart with it in place as it would boot to that, so I closed that dialogue box intending to power off as normal, remove the stick & power up as usual. There was some short message I didn't understand on a blackscreen, I could hear stuff going on & a normal GUI displayed. I chose to power off. There was a dialogue box saying to remove the media & press enter, which I did.

On power up it booted to Win10. I powered off & f9'd on power on & selected Ubuntu & this booted but I was not asked to enter the 'one time password' at any point (nor have I since).

Carried out checks to make sure 3rd party software stuff was active (pretty sure it is) & made sure I updated everything via terminal. Then accessed the BIOS to turn off secure boot hoping that would sort out the boot order & give the option of which OS to boot on start up (which is what I was expecting). It booted to Win10. Retried a few times & always boots to Win10 as default. Did some searches to find a solution.

I installed Grub-customizer which allegedly allows me to do this in the 'general settings-default entry-predefined' dropdown menu. I set this to Ubuntu, saved, restarted - & got Win10 again. Doubled check everything & Grub Customizer has Ubuntu as default/1st entry but if I restart or power off it still boots to Win10, directly without any option to change. If I want Ubuntu I have to f9 to get it.

Ideally I'd like to get the option of which OS to choose when I power on, which is what I was expecting. I'd settle for default boot of Ubuntu & f9 to get Win10. What I don't want is what I've got.

I don't know where to go from here. Please help.

Thanks. I'll bare that in mind for future but as my HDD died yesterday it's a bit superfluous for the moment. I put a few more details of this on my other thread. Basically old age.

Epilogue:

After all that I have to report that, sadly, my HDD expired today after running nicely with no issues. fsck can't even find /dev/sda2 anymore.

I did manage to back up all important doc's (I think) & had run smartmontools which showed me this demise was to be expected. A reallocated sector count at 584, with 69 remap attempts & 88 sectors awaiting remap, looked to me like a small miracle it was running at all. Fairly clear what my crashing problem was. I've never had an HDD die of old age before.

I have fitted a spare HDD temporarily which has done many more hrs but has no reallocated sectors. Put 18.04 on it & it's just about sorted. One small niggle but I'll start a fresh post if I can't sort it.

I have learned a lot trying to sort this & have a record of it here for future ref.

Thank you all again for your help.

Successfully installed (without recommendations). Thank you (yet again)

Just tried the install command you gave & got this weird **** in a purple edge box replacing the terminal:

Package configuration

--------------------------------------------- Postfix Configuration ---------------------------------------------
  |                                                                         ?
  | Please select the mail server configuration type that best meets your     
  | needs.                                                                   
  |                                                                           
  |  No configuration:                                                       
  |   Should be chosen to leave the current configuration unchanged.         
  |  Internet site:                                                           
  |   Mail is sent and received directly using SMTP.                         
  |  Internet with smarthost:                                                 
  |   Mail is received directly using SMTP or by running a utility such       
  |   as fetchmail. Outgoing mail is sent using a smarthost.                 
  |  Satellite system:                                                       
  |   All mail is sent to another machine, called a 'smarthost', for         
  | delivery.                                                                 
  |  Local only:                                                             
  |                                                                           
  |                                 <OK>                                     
  |                                                                         ?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                             
!?!?!?

Can't get the terminal back, trying to close the window says there is still a process running in this terminal closing will kill it. Gonna kill it.

Follow my recent escapades & while still have my 'computer head' on I thought I'd try & check the heath & age of my HDD. Searching I came across Smartmontools command but this had to be installed.

Followed the instruction : $ sudo apt install smartmontools

At the end of the install I had these err, messages:
Err:6 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/main amd64 libmysqlclient20 amd64 5.7.34-0ubuntu0.18.04.1
  404  Not Found [IP: 91.189.88.142 80]
Get:9 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/universe amd64 mailutils amd64 1:3.4-1 [140 kB]
Get:10 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/main amd64 smartmontools amd64 6.5+svn4324-1ubuntu0.1 [477 kB]
Fetched 2,923 kB in 1s (3,736 kB/s)     
E: Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/m/mysql-5.7/libmysqlclient20_5.7.34-0ubuntu0.18.04.1_amd64.deb  404  Not Found [IP: 91.189.88.142 80]
E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with --fix-missing?

I ran 'apt-update' then tried --fix-missing.   Update updated stuff, 'fix-missing' wasn't recognised.
More searching got me short tutorial on fixing broken/missing packages. did this :

:~$ sudo apt-get update --fix-missing
Hit:1 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic InRelease
Hit:2 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates InRelease             
Hit:3 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-backports InRelease           
Hit:4 http://ppa.launchpad.net/micahflee/ppa/ubuntu bionic InRelease           
Hit:5 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security InRelease             
Reading package lists... Done   

then:
$ sudo apt-get install -f
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
0 to upgrade, 0 to newly install, 0 to remove and 10 not to upgrade.

Then I was allegedly read to go so did this (with results):
$ mount | grep 'on / type'
/dev/sda2 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro,data=ordered)
$ sudo smartctl --xall /dev/sda2
sudo: smartctl: command not found

so followed instructions to get rid of any broken/incomplete packages :
$ sudo apt-get update
Hit:1 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic InRelease
Hit:2 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates InRelease             
Hit:3 http://ppa.launchpad.net/micahflee/ppa/ubuntu bionic InRelease           
Hit:4 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-backports InRelease           
Hit:5 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security InRelease             
Reading package lists... Done       
$ sudo apt-get clean
$ sudo apt-get autoremove
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
0 to upgrade, 0 to newly install, 0 to remove and 10 not to upgrade.

& finally my question - am I ready to have another go at installing Smartmontools ?

Mount | grep returned :
/dev/sda1 on /cdrom type vfat [+ stuff in brackets]

replaced "/dev/sda*" with "/dev/sda2" which returned nothing.
  Went ahead with umount /dev/sda2 anyway (returned 'not mounted') then ran fsck -yvf. This actually went through a couple of pages finding & fixing stuff. So I exited, powered down, removed the USB & switched back on. This took me to GNU GRUB page & I selected *ubuntu*. This then went through the loading sequence on black screen & I noted /dev/sda2 as 'clean'. Then loaded splash screen... & it hung up there. On the plus side that is progress 

Looks like another hard shut down then. Then try to boot from a recovery option from advanced option in the GRUB screen...

Update.
On powering on it automatically went to GRUB screen. Selected a recovery boot, which gave me the square options box. Tried to run fsck from there but this quit saying /dev/sda2 was mounted.
I did run dpkg from there which added a package & removed 34 obsolete ones. Then I went to resume normal boot &...

Hey presto I'm writing this from my laptop ! Yay !  Everything looks to be running normally (inc. no more keyboard issues) except I can no longer alter the screen brightness. Maybe a reboot would sort that ? I'm hesitant to do that ever again

Can anyone think of anything I ought to be looking at doing immediately to double check stuff? Once I'm sure things are good I'll go back over Mad Penguin's earlier post & try & sort out his suggestions.

Thanks again to everyone for getting me this far.

2nd update.
Thought I go back over stuff & make some notes here for future ref.
To check how many mounts are allowed before (fsck) check ran:
:~$ sudo tune2fs -l /dev/sda2 | grep Max 
result:
Maximum mount count:      -1    [means 'fsck disabled' ?]

Used  :$ sudo tune2fs -c 1 /dev/sda2  to make sure fsck runs every boot.

Checked file system type with :~$ df -Th | grep "^/dev"
got:
/dev/sda2      ext4      457G   75G  360G  18% /
/dev/sda1      vfat      511M  6.7M  505M   2% /boot/efi
/dev/loop0     squashfs  219M  219M     0 100% /snap/gnome-3-34-1804/66
/dev/loop1     squashfs  2.5M  2.5M     0 100% /snap/gnome-calculator/826
/dev/loop2     squashfs  2.5M  2.5M     0 100% /snap/gnome-system-monitor/163
/dev/loop5     squashfs  100M  100M     0 100% /snap/core/11316
/dev/loop6     squashfs  141M  141M     0 100% /snap/gnome-3-26-1604/102
/dev/loop7     squashfs  2.5M  2.5M     0 100% /snap/gnome-calculator/884
/dev/loop8     squashfs  640K  640K     0 100% /snap/gnome-logs/106
/dev/loop9     squashfs  136M  136M     0 100% /snap/skype/176
/dev/loop13    squashfs  244M  244M     0 100% /snap/gnome-3-38-2004/39
/dev/loop4     squashfs  140M  140M     0 100% /snap/skype/177
/dev/loop12    squashfs   56M   56M     0 100% /snap/core18/2066
/dev/loop10    squashfs  141M  141M     0 100% /snap/gnome-3-26-1604/104
/dev/loop14    squashfs   62M   62M     0 100% /snap/core20/1081
/dev/loop15    squashfs   56M   56M     0 100% /snap/core18/2074
/dev/loop11    squashfs  768K  768K     0 100% /snap/gnome-characters/723
/dev/loop17    squashfs  165M  165M     0 100% /snap/gnome-3-28-1804/161
/dev/loop16    squashfs   66M   66M     0 100% /snap/gtk-common-themes/1515
/dev/loop19    squashfs  640K  640K     0 100% /snap/gnome-logs/103
/dev/loop18    squashfs  219M  219M     0 100% /snap/gnome-3-34-1804/72
/dev/loop20    squashfs  2.5M  2.5M     0 100% /snap/gnome-system-monitor/160
/dev/loop21    squashfs  163M  163M     0 100% /snap/gnome-3-28-1804/145
/dev/loop24    squashfs  768K  768K     0 100% /snap/gnome-characters/726
/dev/loop22    squashfs   65M   65M     0 100% /snap/gtk-common-themes/1514
/dev/loop23    squashfs   62M   62M     0 100% /snap/core20/1026
/dev/loop25    squashfs  100M  100M     0 100% /snap/core/11420

So dev/sda2 is ext4.

It really didn't want to connect to the internet but got here in the end.  Output of fdisk -l :

[email protected]:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/loop0: 1.7 GiB, 1831378944 bytes, 3576912 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/loop1: 86.6 MiB, 90759168 bytes, 177264 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/loop2: 140 MiB, 146841600 bytes, 286800 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/loop3: 1.6 MiB, 1691648 bytes, 3304 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/loop4: 12.2 MiB, 12804096 bytes, 25008 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/loop5: 21 MiB, 22003712 bytes, 42976 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/loop6: 3.3 MiB, 3411968 bytes, 6664 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes


Disk /dev/sda: 465.8 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 398FE7B1-8F42-4583-80A2-F713F12DCD13

Device       Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1     2048   1050623   1048576   512M EFI System
/dev/sda2  1050624 976771071 975720448 465.3G Linux filesystem




Disk /dev/sdb: 7.3 GiB, 7801405440 bytes, 15237120 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x0068a9d2

Device     Boot Start      End  Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1  *       64 15237119 15237056  7.3G  b W95 FAT32
[email protected]:~$

I'm not sure why you say 'log on to my laptop'. I can not boot my laptop except using live UBS OS.
The best I can get using laptop onboard drive is GNU GRUB screen with very limited options & no command terminal. If I try to boot (inc recovery boot) all I get is the long list of boot up sequence on black screen which drops out from a forced fsck, final lines reading:

/dev/sda2: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY.
                (ie. , without -a or -p options)
fsck exited with status code 4 [i believe this means nothing done to fix]
done.
Failure: file system check of the root filesystem failed
The root filesystem on /dev/sda2 requires manual fsck

The only way I've got to access the HDD is from an external live OS ?

I ran your 1st 3 commands on Live USB anyway to see what happened. Only the 2nd one returned any info :- mount count 71
Didn't bother with the last 3 because at the moment it's already running a (forced) fsck at boot with the above problems so they seem superfluous even if I could get a terminal.

From what I read about ext today would support your assumption but successfully ran 'df' etc. with no mention of ext.
However these result of 'df':

/dev/sdb1  vfat  7.3G  4.8G 2.5G  66%  /cdrom

[/dev loop stuff...]

/dev/sdc1  vfat  7.3G  4.8G 2.5G  66% /media/ubuntu/C539-4EEC

looks to me like this is targeting my live USB stick & not my laptop HDD.

Tried sudo fsck /dev/sda2 as you suggested (following umount as before) result:
sudo : unable to execute /sbin/fsck: input/output error

I appreciate your (& everyone's ) help with this.
Where to now??

I seem to have some brain energy available today, yay!

1stly fdisk doesn't show me the partition ext No.
I tried looking up how to find that & ended up using [sudo] file -sl command. with 'sudo' result was :
sudo : unable to execute /usr/bin/file/: input/output error

without 'sudo' result was :
bash : /usr/bin/file/: input/output error

2ndly I found I had made a mistake last time with the command 'for n in /dev/sda*'etc - I'd used : 's instead of ; 's.
Doing it right gives result :
umount : /dev/sda : not mounted.
umount : /dev/sda1 : not mounted.
umount : /dev/sda2 : not mounted.

Now when I run 'e2fsck /dev/sda2 ' I get :
Segmentation fault

I reran everything from the 'for n...etc' unmounting command but used 'sudo' for the e2fsck. The result is :
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

I have to say that doesn't look very encouraging. 
Peoples thoughts please.

Thanks. My brain does this sort of crap all day everyday, it's very wearing.

Results of fdisk l :

/dev/sda1   is EFI system
/dev/sda2   is Linux file system [problem one]

next command 'for n in /dev/sda*'etc returned :
> [flashing cursor which stopped flashing]

then e2fsch /dev/sda2 returned :
bash : syntax error near unexpected token 'e2fsck'  [& back to usual $ prompt]

Did I make any mistakes ?

Good try but fell at the 1st hurdle.

Is the 1st command '-1' (numeral one). if so I get ; invalid option --'1'

if not what is it? - problem my keyboard has reverted to some strange US configuration so the shifted keys aren't as physically shown anymore.

Being autistic + ADHD  is no fun - esp dealing with this sort of thing.

In short I should have done fsck more than a week ago but got completely sidetracked. My laptop was working well, just one crash a few days ago otherwise better than in long while, so just not on the radar & lost track of time.
Today I had some page display issues on ebay & I noted the update ! triangle so I updated. After a couple of reboots things back to normal. Then I had a crash this evening. Hard shut down, reboot a couple of times, OK. Then had page loading issues on FB so I powered down normally but it got stuck on the 'Ubuntu' screen on reboot & I had no other option but a hard shut down.

Long & short is won't reboot. I'm currently on a live USB stick & I've had problems with that too. Reboot (not USB) aborts to black screen with some data inc:
/dev/sda2 : Inodes that were part of a corrupt orphan linked list found
run fsck manually (without -a or -p options)

I've looked at the link Keith posted about fsck. This is mainly about running it from a mounted & 'working' system. There are instructions for using fsck from the recovery option in 'advanced options for ubuntu' on the grub screen. I've manage to boot to  GNU Grub screen but when I select any entry that inc's (recovery mode) it soon goes to black screen with a lot info I don't understand ending /dev/sda2 : etc as above.
I tried running fsck from that (initriamfs) prompt there but nothing happens.

The info on the fsck link doesn't have any info on how to fsck my laptop system files from a live USB OS. So I'm stuck, & out energy. 
I'll check back tomorrow. Thanks for everything so far.