cant start mint after installing it

[fallen torrent]

me and my friend are trying to install mint on my pc cuz i wanted to switch and we got the right iso, checked the hash and installed it but when i try to reboot it, it only shows hp logo without doing anything. can anyone help? pls quick 😭

cant start mint after installing it

[fossil mist]

Laptop specs?

[autumn thunder]

not a laptop

im the friend

[fossil mist]

Pc specs

[fallen torrent]

pc and i7-11700f (i think) and rtx3060ti

[fossil mist]

Hmmmm

Wait for a sec

[autumn thunder]

he has the spec

[fallen torrent]

16 gigs ram, 1tb ssd, 1tb hdd installed it on the ssd

[fossil mist]

You have a bit latest hardware

Do you want to try Fedora?

I guess I may work good with latest hardware

[autumn thunder]

@dire urchin help ples

[fallen torrent]

no i wanna get mint sry

[fossil mist]

Okay

[autumn thunder]

my computer is better and it works (r7 7700x and 4060ti)

32 g of ram

2 tb ssd and 1 tb hdd

[fossil mist]

@fallen torrent try edge iso

Of Linux mint

https://linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=314

[noble rock]

Use Edge ISO or the Mint 22 beta.

[autumn thunder]

he is getting edge

[noble rock]

Good. Next thing you do is RTFM: https://www.linuxmint.com/documentation.php

[autumn thunder]

i was tryna be his manual

also the iso is downloaded and checksum is verified

[noble rock]

A noble purpose, but feel free to rely on the handbook. Smart people wrote it, so all of us have an easier time.

[fossil mist]

I never knew that linux mint has a documentation

[autumn thunder]

i thing every disto does tbh

[noble rock]

It is secret knowledge. Share only with the worthy.

[autumn thunder]

Um @noble rock & @fossil mist Rufus pulled a balena etcher and bricked his drive I think

[fossil mist]

Use ventoy

It's best

[autumn thunder]

It doesn’t show up at all even in any of the programs

[fossil mist]

Have you tried ventoy?

[autumn thunder]

👆this guy sounds like a distro hopper

[fossil mist]

??

[autumn thunder]

Ventoy is a distrohopper rejoice

[fossil mist]

So?

[noble rock]

Ventoy and Balena are the default options to write the ISOs, with Ventoy having the most advantages. Rufus works, but you need to use at least 4.4, and use sane settings.

[fossil mist]

It's better than Rufus and etcher anyways

[noble rock]

It is the best tool for the job, hopper or not.

[autumn thunder]

Ventoy isn’t working either

[fossil mist]

Okay

[noble rock]

They you are doing it wrong.

[autumn thunder]

No the flash drive is bricked

I said it pulled a balena

The only drive that shows is his c

[noble rock]

Flash tools do not brick flash drives, they just make the broken ones visible.

And you may have used the wrong mode: the options are UEFI/GPT and MBR/legacy/CSM

[fossil mist]

Wilson basketball lol, I just realise now

[autumn thunder]

Uefi and mir

[noble rock]

I guess he survived and lived a full life.

[autumn thunder]

Wrong reply

[fossil mist]

Yea

[noble rock]

If you want to do this right, forget MBR/legacy. Set the UEFI to boot UEFI-only, no CSM/MBR/whatever, and create the medium in UEFI/GPT mode. Then it should show up as a boot option (needs to be plugged before booting), unless the actual flash drive is broken.

[autumn thunder]

No I’m tryna say it doesn’t show in Rufus/Belena

Or even on windows create and format hard disk partitions

[noble rock]

Then it is dead.

[fallen torrent]

got another one, tried it with ventoy, didnt work, same results

@noble rock

[noble rock]

What do you expect from me? If you do not get the same results as everybody else, then you are either doing something wrong, or all your media are broken.

[dire urchin]

u mean just HP screen after installing?

[fallen torrent]

yes

[dire urchin]

did you / do you have another operating system on that same HP computer?

[fallen torrent]

no

[fallen torrent]

i did have win 11

but i deleted it when installing and restarting linux

[dire urchin]

ok so the USB was able to boot and load the LIVE Mint session?

[fallen torrent]

yes. I got it installed from the usb but it wont boot

[dire urchin]

ok go into the BIOS setup

[fallen torrent]

Ok

[dire urchin]

check in the Boot category the order of things and list them

[fallen torrent]

OS boot manager is on top and ubuntu is on top too

[dire urchin]

only one on top

put ubuntu to top

[fallen torrent]

yeah the os boot system is ubuntu

[autumn thunder]

os boot manager is an option where he picked ubuntu to be first

[dire urchin]

k

was secure boot put off pre-installation?

[autumn thunder]

yes i made sure

[dire urchin]

see if the BIOS has a fast-boot setting

and disable it

[fallen torrent]

What section of the bios settings would it be in?

[dire urchin]

either advanced, or boot

[fallen torrent]

no theres no such option

[dire urchin]

ok

did u make any change AT ALL in the last 8 minutes in BIOS?

[fallen torrent]

we cleared the secure boot keys ig

[dire urchin]

and also, did u make it exclusively UEFI mode since pre-installation as curunir said?

[fallen torrent]

idk anymore tbh

[autumn thunder]

we couldnt find legacy boot

so idk

[dire urchin]

so check the mode. it should say in either Advanced or Config or Boot categories

[autumn thunder]

he says uefi

[fallen torrent]

it says uefi hii config

[dire urchin]

yes go in that

[fallen torrent]

in there there is realtek and intel rapid storage tech but i can only see info in there

[dire urchin]

is RST off?

[fallen torrent]

whats that

[dire urchin]

rapid storage tech

[autumn thunder]

his drive is under non-rst devices idfk

[dire urchin]

well that's good. if u easily saw the target drive during install

[dire urchin]

k and the installer saw that just fine?

[fossil mist]

in order to install an OS, you must prepare your BIOS and the source media. you can use gparted live to prepare the target drive and properly format it then install mint. @fallen torrent

that's where ventoy comes to play, as it allows to multiboot

[dire urchin]

they managed to intall it, even shows ubuntu grub in boot list

[fossil mist]

we need mint 22. been seeing a lot of issues with 21.3

[fallen torrent]

ye it still says 21.3

[dire urchin]

@fallen torrent go on another pc, and add this tool to your ventoy drive : #1200928716415566005 message

it may help u boot the pc

[fossil mist]

I mean, ootb mint 21.3 is too old, so you must use edge iso. that's why mint 22 is required to update the packages

[dire urchin]

at least u will know then if it's just a bad bootloader or something else

[autumn thunder]

we alr are

[dire urchin]

they did use edg3

I'll wait til u get supergrub.

after it's on ventoy usb, boot the usb up (should show as UEFI USB STORAGE DRIVE or very similar

then choose the supergrub2 image in ventoy menu

then in orange screen, pick search all OS; scroll to bottom and find UEFI grubx64.efi or very similar, and launch it, that should boot up Mint if all else is fine

[autumn thunder]

he has super grub and has booted into it

wdym search all os

[dire urchin]

ya follow the above

'detect and show all boot methods"

[autumn thunder]

he is sending it now

[dire urchin]

.

either grub xxxxx.efi or ubunt x64.efi

[autumn thunder]

grubx64.efi

[fallen torrent]

got /efi/ubuntu/grubx64.efi

[dire urchin]

careful to picck proper drive

hd0 is the usb

[fallen torrent]

i got hd2

and gpt1

[dire urchin]

good try that

[fallen torrent]

ok now its just a black screen with no hp logo

after is selected linux 21.3 cinnamon

[dire urchin]

how long?

[fallen torrent]

since i clicked on it like 1 min now

[dire urchin]

is it an SSD?

[fallen torrent]

yes

[dire urchin]

K

ya that's too long

[fallen torrent]

what should i do then

[dire urchin]

so you did see this as a short menu then?

[fallen torrent]

yes

[dire urchin]

try ctrl-alt-delete right now, repeat the supergrub thing, and try advanced option, and erase the words quiet splash and replace with nomodeset

[fallen torrent]

i cant ctrl alt del

[dire urchin]

force reboot then

[fallen torrent]

ok

where is quiet splash

[dire urchin]

I thnk in Advanced options, it should a) tell you the linux image in use, and b) show something like press e to edit startup options

[fallen torrent]

im am here now

[dire urchin]

ah

[fallen torrent]

i see quiet splash

[dire urchin]

oh ok

because I dont

[fallen torrent]

so i replace this and reboot?

[dire urchin]

so try replacing that with nomodeset

if that doesn't work, then try again, but put 'nomodeset' after the dollar sign symble where it currently shows gfxmode

[fallen torrent]

now its stuck at the serial number

[dire urchin]

give it another minute, if nothing, then try the gfxmode $ thing

[fallen torrent]

do i force reboot?

[dire urchin]

u may also erase the "quiet splash" thing on second attempt and leave it without that term so u can see text

[dire urchin]

how long over all since u hit enter or F10 after editing the startup config text?

i guess its been a few minutes

[fallen torrent]

yes

[fallen torrent]

yeah

[dire urchin]

ok my last guess is the gfxmode

u can also try to get to the Advanced Grub menu by holding down shift key upon reboot with NO VENTOY USB connected

cuz I'm thinking now it may not be the bootloader but something else

[fallen torrent]

wait

[dire urchin]

or if Shift key doesnt work, then repeatedly press the Esc key

[fallen torrent]

its doing something

its loading essential drivers

@dire urchin

[dire urchin]

well, did it load to desktop?

[fallen torrent]

it says Begin: Loading essential drivers

@dire urchin

[dire urchin]

and?

it should have loaded the desktop if it was just a graphics card issue

[fallen torrent]

it didnt load to the desktop

[dire urchin]

shucks. I'm out of ideas at this moment

at installation time did you tick the box for 'install other proprietary drivers" (would have needed internet connected and working during install)

[fallen torrent]

do u mean multimedia codecs?

[dire urchin]

i think there's two tickboxes.. one for codec, and one for miscellaneous proprietary drivers. Unless they put both in one sentence

[fallen torrent]

i checked em but i also had internet connected

[dire urchin]

how fast is your internet download speed, if u know?

@fallen torrent reboot the computer with the ventoy usb, and make very sure to pick it as a UEFI usb device, not just plain usb (if given the option via the temporary boot options menu)

and choose Mint iso from ventoy screen, and boot normal mode. (and time it from the time u press enter at the 2nd ventoy screen)

[fallen torrent]

like 5-8mb/s

[fallen torrent]

i dont really understand

[dire urchin]

just boot the live iso and time it

from 2nd ventoy screen pressing enter, until you land on the live desktop fully loaded

[autumn thunder]

thers no efi one only uefi

[dire urchin]

ya pick that

have a watch or timer ready

[fallen torrent]

about 40 secs

sry that it took so long we were trying to figure out what u meant

[autumn thunder]

~40 sec from grub to desktop

[fallen torrent]

also im up since like 14-16 hours lol

[dire urchin]

before u go, if u can connect computer to internet, and run the Boot Repair tool from the start menu in live desktop, then do a summary report and send it here and also save the report's text file to your SSD.

your SSD home folder will be in path /media/mint/<ssd volume name>/home/$user/

and take a landscape oriented clear photo of the "Disks" application, with the SSD having Mint selected, and the main big partition of it selected and mounted.

[fallen torrent]

do you mean this by chance?

@dire urchin

[dire urchin]

ya

[fallen torrent]

does that work out for u?

[dire urchin]

yes can u send the picture too what I said?

I'll read over the summary and leave you recommendations for tomorrow.

[fallen torrent]

of what?

[dire urchin]

disks app

[fallen torrent]

how do i take a screenshot?

[dire urchin]

u can use alt-shift-print

or to be quicker, just use ur mobile if ur already logged on discord via mobile

[fallen torrent]

this?

[dire urchin]

no, open the start menu, then go in Accessories, and launch Disks

then pick the stuff i said

[fallen torrent]

oh

[dire urchin]

and do alt-shift-print so it captures just the window

[fallen torrent]

is this what u want?

[dire urchin]

.

[fallen torrent]

oh

is this better now?

[dire urchin]

choose main one and show

[fallen torrent]

this is the main one isnt it

[dire urchin]

main partition with mint on it is p2 there

[fallen torrent]

im not really sure what you mean

[autumn thunder]

so what is p1?

[autumn thunder]

he said mint is in partition 2

[dire urchin]

that's the EFI System Partition (ESP) needed to boot the SSD up to its OS

[fallen torrent]

this?

[autumn thunder]

so sumn is wrong in that 400 mb

[dire urchin]

what's wrong?

[autumn thunder]

umm it boots into blank screen maybe?

idk you're the expert here

[dire urchin]

no. i dont think so. SuperGrub was able to launch from it (albeit rather manuall)

what is the 1 TB hard disk called? it should say in the titlebar when u choose it

[autumn thunder]

i dont recall i remember it booted in a black screen

[autumn thunder]

that is his hdd

[dire urchin]

oh you may have been gone earlier a while. Henri said it was doing something.. like loading essential drivers etc. I even got him into the advanced Grub menu.

[dire urchin]

ya but what is it called, just so i can confirm in the Summary report

[fallen torrent]

ST1000DM014-2FR10D (VP03)

[autumn thunder]

yup i remember now, and i was gone but in the call with him tryna play hypixel skyblock

[dire urchin]

the dev name please

[autumn thunder]

@fallen torrent /dev/(name of drive)

[dire urchin]

sda, ty

[autumn thunder]

sda 1

[dire urchin]

alright I'll have a look thru the report and leave any reco's.

[fallen torrent]

if u got any potential problem solvers, leave em in the chat here

can i go to sleep now?

[dire urchin]

perhaps before you go to bed, download the Ubuntu Cinnamon 24.04 ISO (just google it) that way if all else cant be solved, u can at least try that on the ventoy.

like save the iso on ur working computer, not this live session

[fallen torrent]

ill do that tmr

[dire urchin]

alright.

[autumn thunder]

"No boot loader is installed in the MBR of /dev/nvme0n1." @dire urchin i reckon this is an issue correct me if im wrong

[dire urchin]

nah. it got installed as UEFI setup, so it uses the ESP, not the MBR

[autumn thunder]

thats why i said correct me if im wrong

ur more intelligent at this stuff

there is a reason i added you to the thread

reccomended fix in the file is reinstalling the entire bootloader

thats crazy

what did we do

lmao

[dire urchin]

Suggested repair: ______________________________________________________________

The default repair of the Boot-Repair utility would purge (in order to unsign) and reinstall the grub-efi of
nvme0n1p2,
using the following options: nvme0n1p1/boot/efi
Additional repair would be performed: **unhide-bootmenu-10s **use-standard-efi-file

Final advice in case of suggested repair: ______________________________________

Please do not forget to make your UEFI firmware boot on the Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia (21.3) entry (nvme0n1p1/efi//grub.efi (**** will be updated in the final message) file) !

yeah from what I gather, it might have been installed with Secure Boot ON, and signed, and now secure boot is off and it is confused possibly. Do the recommened repair. at least you'll get the Grub menu with 10 seconds in case to access the Advanced options if need be.

[autumn thunder]

no?

===================================== UEFI =====================================

BIOS/UEFI firmware: F.21(15.33) from AMI
The firmware is EFI-compatible, and is set in EFI-mode for this live-session.
SecureBoot disabled - SecureBoot disabled - Please report this message to [e-mail].

[dire urchin]

the rest of summary shows all is legit.

[dire urchin]

this is the live system right now.

[autumn thunder]

secure boot is off that is the first thing i told him to try

i learned a thing or two from you

[dire urchin]

like was it made OFF from the start?

before any install attempts?

[autumn thunder]

yeah ~noon

[autumn thunder]

before the most recent one at least

[dire urchin]

ok. well tomorrow he'll find out. my guess is the video card or something. that's why I suggested Ubuntu Cinnamon as a possible alternative.

[autumn thunder]

ubuntu cinnamon is acually gonna be worse

[dire urchin]

what I find puzzling is the live system booted to desktop without complaint

[autumn thunder]

ubuntu is dog

[dire urchin]

but firing it off from Supergrub, the installed version hung partway

[autumn thunder]

no, it wouldnt boot without compat mode

[dire urchin]

oh

how new is the motherboard?

[autumn thunder]

idk its an hp something or other

judging by the rest of his pc its atleast recent

[dire urchin]

needing compatibility mode to launch the live ISO is the first immediate red flag

[autumn thunder]

noted, i did not think about that

[dire urchin]

we'll see tomorrow after boot repair I guess

[autumn thunder]

if all else fails install it in efi/legacy and try that

the problem would then be he cant boot from uefi

[dire urchin]

i doubt it's that. if it was, then it wouldn't even begin loading at all from supergrub

which we tried, and it got partway in

i've seen others here have installed mint with a 3060 GPU (not sure if Ti or not) and it at least boots up .

[autumn thunder]

i couldnt tell you the exact board but its a raptor lake hp board

of some kind

[dire urchin]

let me cross check that

[autumn thunder]

i mean mine booted without issue and i have a 4060ti

[dire urchin]

I see raptor lake is pretty new. within the scope of the edge iso (unless it's the raptor lake refresh 14th gen)

[autumn thunder]

I mis spoke

It’s rocket not raptor

@dire urchin

[dire urchin]

mkay

[autumn thunder]

11th gen desktop cpu

[dire urchin]

yeah it should be fine. anyway im taking a break from this.

[autumn thunder]

Specifically an 11700f

i7

[dire urchin]

Henri do this tomorrow and see #1264300547998093313 message

[autumn thunder]

I’ll tell him ig cuz I remember exactly where secure boot is in his bios

[dire urchin]

if Mint still refuses to boot up after the boot repair, and after adding even nomodeset to the gfxmode and/or the extra options text line in Advanced boot option of grub, then try EndeavourOS

[autumn thunder]

the reason we picked mint is because its debian based and i know it well

msybe straight debian?

[dire urchin]

doubt it will be any easier. however Spiral OS (which runs on all the existing current Debian infrastructure) but having some handy custom usability tweaks, may be good.

[autumn thunder]

whabout elementeryOS?

[dire urchin]

nah limited

[autumn thunder]

in my time with it on my laptop it has done everything i needed and he would need (e.g. launch steam and occasionally minecraft)

[dire urchin]

also can run Mint off the ventoy stick, but enable the persistence plugin and use the SSD for persisence, (at least maybe til Mint 22 comes out and is smoothed out)

[autumn thunder]

speaking of which he could try the 22 beta

[dire urchin]

i think its downloadable from distrowatch.org, taht

wouldn't really invest emotionally in a beta though

[autumn thunder]

or maybe jump on the zorinOS train instead

idfk

[fallen torrent]

yo im back

@dire urchin

[dire urchin]

.

goin to sleep soon cya

[fallen torrent]

i saw it but idk rly what to do

[fossil mist]

Maybe try something bleeding edge

Endeavour or fedora

Fedora is very stable as well

[dire urchin]

let boot repair do its recommended repair

[fallen torrent]

i did that, it said nvram is locked

[dire urchin]

just hit ok

it may proceed

[fallen torrent]

no it gives me a summary

[dire urchin]

oh

maybe Windows left it locked

[fallen torrent]

how do i unlock it?

[dire urchin]

ask cocogoat in some hours if he's around

or go in BIOS, check secure boot settings and see if there's an option for OS-Type

change from Windows to non-Windows OS

[fallen torrent]

@leaden basin

theres this

platform key

@dire urchin is that the right one?

[dire urchin]

nah

keep looking

it may not be there but check everything

[fallen torrent]

cant find it

[dire urchin]

well leave it.

[dire urchin]

try installing Spiral OS cinnamon

[fallen torrent]

so i cant get linux mint?

[dire urchin]

u can try it later perhaps in august on latest version

[fossil mist]

Try something else, and see if it works or not

[fossil mist]

This

[fallen torrent]

ok ig

[fossil mist]

As i said try endeavour or Fedora once

If that didn't worked, switch back to windows

What else can be done

[dire urchin]

see pic.

[fallen torrent]

Im gonna try spiralos first then endeavour then fedora

[dire urchin]

aight

[fossil mist]

Just get the cinnamon version of endeavour or Fedora if you really want Linux mint type experience

https://fedoraproject.org/spins/cinnamon/

[fallen torrent]

no i think i'll use win10 until this next version comes out from linux mint in august

if that's a good choicr

[fossil mist]

Why hard on Linux mint?

Any reasons?

[fallen torrent]

cuz when i wanted to switch on linux, i wanted linux mint and my friend ( @autumn thunder ) also has linux mint so he can help me, also i went and researched for linux mint, any other name feels like an uneasy choice ig

[fossil mist]

Distros such as endeavour and Fedora are very reputated just like linux mint

[fallen torrent]

but still its still smth else

[fossil mist]

They just have different package management system that's it

From the core they are almost same

Even Fedora is used by founder of Linux,linus torvalds

Not every distro works for everyone

Everyone try different things until it starts to work

That's how people explore Linux

[fallen torrent]

ill do windows tho till the new update comes out

[fossil mist]

Ok that's also fine

[autumn thunder]

i wont let him use a red hat based distro its gonna be endevor if theres gonna be another option

[autumn thunder]

@fallen torrent would you wanna try arch or something arch based?

[fallen torrent]

no

[autumn thunder]

hold up ill find the mint 22 beta

https://mirrors.layeronline.com/linuxmint/testing/linuxmint-22-cinnamon-64bit-beta.iso

@fallen torrent heres a direct download link

[fallen torrent]

ok ill dualboot for testing ig

[autumn thunder]

dual boot with what exactly?? windows doesn't exist anymore

[fallen torrent]

got win10

[autumn thunder]

join dev vc

[fallen torrent]

it only booted in compatability mode but i wont test it rn i got other things to do on my bday

[fallen torrent]

my personal opinion why it wont work is that i have intel cpu

amd cpu betta

[fallen torrent]

@dire urchin when linux mint 22 releases, can we go into vc and we'll try together again to get linux installed?

[dire urchin]

sure

[fallen torrent]

maybe tomorrow ill have to look

[dire urchin]

alright

[autumn thunder]

@dire urchin I’ve narrowed it down to not a kernel issue by getting a neofetch

The cpu and gpu show up

And it’s kernel 6.8.0

at least the installer

[dire urchin]

so no issues now?

[autumn thunder]

In the installer, the installed one doesn’t work yet

He deleted it off his drive 😭

[dire urchin]

mkay

[dire urchin]

this is the official release one, not the beta right?

[autumn thunder]

Yes

[deft schooner]

@fallen torrent what is the exact laptop model?

[fallen torrent]

pc

wait

[autumn thunder]

Henri download this- https://mirrors.layeronline.com/linuxmint/testing/linuxmint-22-cinnamon-64bit-beta.iso

Put it on the root of the drive

[deft schooner]

beta?

[autumn thunder]

Ye

[fallen torrent]

why beta tho

[autumn thunder]

Because it’s a newer more bleeding edge version that has a chance at working

[fallen torrent]

#📌announcements message

[deft schooner]

???
it's not bleeding edge and it's a beta, use an official release bruh

[autumn thunder]

The official release didn’t work and it’s a beta so it has the newest hardware compatibility

[deft schooner]

either I misunderstood or you did

[deft schooner]

hmm?

[autumn thunder]

Beta = new just like his pc therefore it has a higher chance to work

[fallen torrent]

idk why but my windows wont boot anymorelol

[deft schooner]

What's your motherboard model?

[fallen torrent]

hp

[deft schooner]

and any more details? what does it do?

[fallen torrent]

idk

[autumn thunder]

Some intel rocket lake board

From hp

[deft schooner]

prebuilt or custom built?

[fallen torrent]

pre

[autumn thunder]

Prebuilt hp pavilion

[deft schooner]

okay. please record a video on what happens when you power on your pc and when you try to boot mint or windows. and I want your exact model for a reason

[autumn thunder]

/nick sudo apt purge apt

Bro what

[fallen torrent]

ok

[autumn thunder]

test

[autumn thunder]

Hp pavilion gaming tg0

His neofetch is 5 messages above urs

[fallen torrent]

its just stuck

should i try reinstalling windows

[deft schooner]

that's weird.

[deft schooner]

boot the "Ubuntu" entry now

and press arrow down or something so that it doesn't automatically boot, and show me a picture of what you see

[autumn thunder]

Try installing the beta I linked.

[dire urchin]

to provide full system information for guidance and help,

• boot the mint live iso, reach the live desktop then open System Reports in Mint menu, click the system info tab, then send report here.

[autumn thunder]

Do this first

[dire urchin]

this can also be saved by the owner for their own reference in the future.

[autumn thunder]

Henri owns his pc and the thread

[deft schooner]

@fallen torrent you there?

[fallen torrent]

yes sry i was kinda tired so i went to bed

[fallen torrent]

i deleted the ubuntu partition on windows cuz it wasnt working

[dire urchin]

hang on, that system report u sent was from the live desktop?

@fallen torrent

I know that is what I said to do, but what is this black screen pic now?

type exit there, then press Enter, and see what happens

[deft schooner]

well, he said he removed mint so that's expected

[dire urchin]

the big hurdle here is the boot process from the SSD (and that crazy Intel RAID thing I saw in the system info) It boots and runs from the USB just fine.

[deft schooner]

after reading some forums, adding noacpi or acpi=off is supposed to work for this specific system, but he removed Linux so oh well