Railfan Technology > Replacing Windows 8 with Linux mint....help request.

Last year I bought a pair of Toshiba laptops with AMD processors, 4 GB of memory and a .5T hard drive.

They came with Windows 8 (not 8.1) and do not have touch screens.

I'd like to put Linux Mint on them and have been assured by my local digital wizards such is possible.

Yet, despite several hours by a pair of Linux-istas we were unable to breach some manner of security boot BIOS
and load Linux Mint. Tried loading Linux Mint using a USB stick and also the optical drive to no avail.

We got Linux Mint on my older Windows 7 machine and it runs fine there. Saved the files and let the optical drive
write over all the garbage that had collected.

Advice solicited, help appreciated.

Be Well,

Tim Colbert K3HX



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/21/14 12:07 by K3HX.

I had mint on a disk, it started as soon as I put the disk in.. No problems at all......Swede.....Albany.Or.

I think I would start with windows version of fdisk: remove the windows
partitions, and then try to install your linux. You'll first need to
setup linux partitions on the disk before installing the OS.

HTH & please report back for success or continued troubles.

John.

Disable UEFI boot and enable legacy boot in the BIOS.

Top_bullfrog
Sacramento, CA

As the above poster said, there is most likely something in the BIOS blocking you from making changes to your own computer:

Either this or a similar series of steps should help you disable it before installing a new OS:

https://neosmart.net/wiki/disabling-secure-boot/

Top_bullfrog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Disable UEFI boot and enable legacy boot in the
> BIOS.
>
> Top_bullfrog
> Sacramento, CA


^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This is the key to removing Win8 and installing another OS.

Thanks to the folk who took the time and went to the trouble of
making suggestions.

My Linux-ista came up with the following steps which seem to work OK:


Keystrokes to make Toshiba laptop work with Linux

Turn On

Press F2 to go into BIOS setup

Turn off “Secure Boot” (This does not show up if “Secure Boot” is already off.)

Go to “Advanced” menu

Set “Boot Mode” to CSM BOOT

Hit Escape

Go to “Boot Menu”

Using F5 for up and F6 for down , move ODD to
top of list, HDD/SSD to 2nd spot.

Hit Escape

Hit F10 to save settings.



Seems the particular BIOS used by Toshiba was the culprit.

Be Well,

Tim Colbert K3HX