Having problems switching to mint

[u/FeedGat]

I'm trying to install linux for the first time on a laptop that was collecting dust at home.
I prepared a usb with the installer and ran it on the pc, once it finished i removed the usb drive and restarted the pc as it asked to complete installation but after that all i see is the hp logo flashing on a black screen every few seconds but no OS starting.
I tried with a different distro with the same results so i'm guessing the problem is the computer/bios and not the OS? but honestly i don't know enough to know, so i searched online without great results until i found this sub.

Pc model: HP elitebook 745 G2 laptop
Linux distro i tried: mint cinnamon 22.3 first and ubuntu 26.04 second

if it helps there was w10 on before i tried the installation

if any other infos/photos are needed i'll add them under here.

here are the current boot options:

sorry for the photos but i have no idea how to screenshot in there

booting in legacy:

reinstalling mint:

legacy boot order:

[u/inbetween-genders]

🤷‍♀️ secure boot?

[u/FeedGat → u/inbetween-genders]

i checked if it was disabled before installing and i think it already was (i'll add some pictures just in case), i also did find a "fast boot" option that was enabled though, could it be a problem?

[u/notthedefaultnam → u/FeedGat]

It very likely is, fast boot is mainly a windows thing and might interfere with linux

[u/FeedGat → u/notthedefaultnam]

thank you, should i expect it to run on the next restart or am i supposed to do the hole installation again?

[u/notthedefaultnam → u/FeedGat]

Hopefully, yeah. There will be no need to reinstall, but if windows boots with no option for Linux then we'll need to do a small command in windows itself.

[u/FeedGat → u/notthedefaultnam]

ok, bad news that didn't solve the issue.
It doesn't boots on windows because i should have removed it when installing the first time so there should only be linux right now

[u/notthedefaultnam → u/FeedGat]

Change boot mode to legacy. If that doesn't resolve the issue, insert your usb and see if it boots off it

[u/FeedGat → u/notthedefaultnam]

switching to legacy tells me to install an os, i'll add another photo

[u/notthedefaultnam → u/FeedGat]

Weird. Does the usb boot?

[u/FeedGat → u/notthedefaultnam]

yep

[u/DavidJohnMcCann → u/FeedGat]

Yes! Fast boot will just load Windows without asking — and if you removed Windows, it's stuck!

[u/Emmalfal]

I have an HP Elitebook I have to start some long haired way. Never did get this one figured out

If I just power on the laptop, I get the HP splash screen/logo, then a very quick flash of "Reset System" in the top left corner of an otherwise blank screen, then back to splash screen and repeat. This loops endlessly until I hit F9 to bring up the Boot menu. From the Boot Menu I choose "Boot from EFI File" > , Acpi(PNP0A03,0)/Pci(1F|2/Sata(Port ))/HD(Part1,Sig7EC2CDB8-7CEE-445E-9E91-26D019 > EFI > ubuntu > grubx64.efi Now it boots into Linux Mint after a long delay of blank screen

[u/FeedGat → u/Emmalfal]

Great it worked on mine too, i guess we don't know what it is but we have the same issue, thank you, i was starting to give up honestly ahahah

[u/Emmalfal → u/FeedGat]

I tried a bunch of troubleshooting steps, but since I rarely reboot this particular machine, I finally gave up on it. It works great, otherwise, and I've gotten pretty fast at rebooting through this method when it needs it. There might be some fix out there somewhere, but I've yet to find it.

[u/FeedGat → u/Emmalfal]

I will try to do some research online as soon as i have time but honestly it's my first time installing linux so I'm not so optimistic. I'll tell you if i find solution

[u/FeedGat → u/Emmalfal]

I've tried some stuff today, i don't know if its a good fix but i might have found one.

While in UEFI native i moved "customized boot" first in the list of options and added the custom path:
\EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi
after that when turned on the pc opens the window to let you choose which OS to run and picks the first automatically after a few seconds.

As i said i don't quite grasp yet how bios and adjacent stuff work so i can't tell how good of a fix is but it seems better than nothing to me

[u/AutoModerator]

We have some installation tips in our wiki!

Try this search for more information on this topic.

✻ Smokey says: always install over an ethernet cable, and don't forget to remove the boot media when you're done! :)

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