Jayhawkat,
I’m glad we were able to fix your problem and good luck on your Linux journey 
Michael
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Michael–my apologies for the long period passing before installing Mint.
Unfortunately, upon plugging in the USB stick into the laptop, it started up in Windows. I verified that the UEFI has the option to start USB. I have tried restarting with the stick left in and shutting down, then booting up and then inserting the USB to no avail. Windows is starting up regardless.
Any ideas?
zpepelepu,
It sounds like you do not have the USB first in your boot order and if the windows boot loader is first, it will always boot first.
When you boot your computer and see the first boot menu, if you press F12, does a boot order override window pop up?
Michael,
Attaching a pic of the boot menu after pressing F10 during start-up. Please give me your thoughts when able.
Howdy - I had the same problem with the first HP I converted. I had to enable legacy support and put the usb first in the legacy boot order. It worked for me. Just my $.02.
Cheers
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@zpepelepu , thank you for this screen shot and I agree with @BigDaveAZ that you will probably have to enable the Legacy Support option in order to change the boot order for the Linux USB to be first in the search.
I’m not sure if your laptop has the over ride menu capability I mentioned earlier, but give it a shot as well as it may be an easier option for you. (Press the F12 key as soon as you see the display turn on to see if a pop up boot selection window appears. If yes then you should see an option for your USB drive.
Let me know how it goes and if you require anything further.
Michael
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BigDaveAZ–howdy doody from Texas. I do appreciate the feedback. If the below hadn’t succeeded, I would have gone your route.
Michael–I was able to find the boot selection option/override by pressing ESC. After doing this I was able to install Linux Mint. I started back up into Windows to give an update, so all appears well. Obviously, my next steps are the basics–getting VPN, mail client etc.
Now, asking for a little more advice. I plan to dual boot my Win 7 Dell (500 mb HDD) with a Linux install. I know I’ll have to do a few different things. Question is what would you recommend for the older Dell? Maybe a lite version of Zorin?
Many thanks.
How old is your Dell and how much memory do you have in it?
I have two old thinkpads (over 11 years for each) and I am able to easily run many distros on them. Zorin was the only one that I could not get to install correctly on the thinkpads, and it probably has something to do with their age. However, Manjaro, MX-Linux, Mint, PopOS and Ubuntu all run flawlessly, so it may just come down to personal preference for you. Hand pick a few and test them to see if they meet your needs.
Just remember to make sure you back up your important files before to perform the dual boot, as you will need to shrink your 500 MB NTFS disk to allow for the separate Linux installation.
2013 Latitude, 16 GB RAM, 250 GB free HDD. It’s actually much faster than the newer HP.
On another note, upon booting into Linux on this HP, the update/install of language packs and the new Mint version update result in errors and are unable to download/install. I have internet connection but no success in completing those actions. I will next try using the compatability mode to see if I can proceed.