It actually took two attempts with Ventoy, the first time the drive failed part way through. I think it overheated or something, it was very hot. I had to wipe it and try again, giving it time unplugged to cool down between flashing it and installing it, and that seemed to work fine. Probably a hardware issue though, it’s a cheap drive

I ended up getting it to work. I’m still not sure what the issue was, but I wiped the USB and tried using Ventoy to flash instead and that seemed to work. No idea why.

I managed to get it running last night and installed on my system. Thank you for your help. I appreciate it.

Okay update, part way through the installation process (before it actually started downloading, when it’s still asking questions about languages and location and password and all that) it said it failed and lost connection to the drive or something, then froze. When I tried to re-boot it, it started saying “invalid magic number, load kernel first” or something around those lines. It’s getting late here, so I’ll try it again tomorrow. If you know of anything I can try, I’ll attempt it when I get the chance.

I tried redoing it right after replying to you.

Just tried Ventoy, it worked perfectly. Thank you! I appreciate it.

It was just a regular usb drive as far as I know, nothing fancy. Completely clean before hand, new. I used Balenta Etcher to flash Linux Mint onto it. It was specifically the August 2023 version of BE if that makes a difference. The current version was bugging and would just freeze.

Pretty sure it was UEFI

It’s from a regular usb drive as far as I know. It’s new and never been used, didn’t hold anything on it until I flashed the Linux Mint ISO onto it. I used Balenta Etcher to flash it, not sure how to verify with it.

Hey! I finally got around to trying out what you said. I got it running and played around for a bit, and decided to dual boot at least for now. I powered off, ejected the usb, went back to windows to clear up some disc space and went to boot up Mint again, and got greeted with this:

Failed to open \EFI\B00T\mmx64.efi - Not Found
Failed to load image ??: Not Found
Failed to start MokManager: Not Found
Something has gone seriously wrong: import mok-state() failed: Not Found

I disabled secure boot but it’s still giving me this. It shows it for a few seconds and then turns off. Any suggestions? I’m not sure why it was working before and isn’t now. It’s a bit frustrating.

Good to know. Thanks. I’ll look into that one.

I appreciate the write up! I’ll refer to your comment the next time I’m at my PC and give it a shot. Thanks again.

Thanks for this, I’ll look into it. I don’t have easy access to an old laptop right now, so I’ll have to do one of the options you mentioned. I think I’ll look into the USB option first and see if it’s something I can figure out. If not then I’ll try the virtual machine. I appreciate the added info.

I’ve been considering doing the same recently for the reasons you listed but I’m fairly technologically stunted. How did the process go for you? How smooth was the transition? I’m fed up with windows and need a change but I’m not tech savvy at all.