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If you booted your usb from the first item on the menu you showed us, then I think that would be a UEFI native boot. Because the second (Compatibility) item looks to me like a boot in BIOS emulation mode, often called "compatibility support mode". In which case, if the installer is properly designed, it should have put GRUB into the EFI system partition where your UEFI chip would look for it, and not into the MBR. Fortunately that is a very easy thing to check. Boot up with your usb and type
Code:
sudo /sbin/fdisk -l /dev/sda
In the resultant list of partitions, you should see one (nearly always the first one /dev/sda1) labelled as an EFI system partition. You can mount it for inspection using
Code:
sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt
Then look in the /mnt directory. You should see a Windows directory and one for Linux. Let us know their contents.
There's no such thing as a "UEFI Linux distribution". Basically all Linux distributions nowadays support UEFI/GPT. But yes, it might be easier for you to disable it. Some computers support disabling it, other don't, that is to say, disabling the UEFI booting (if the BIOS itself is UEFI there's nothing you can do about that - that's a sort of oxymoron, BIOSs cannot be UEFI, but that's how people still call them, because it's easier to know what you mean). So you could choose MBR or MBR compatible, but it depends a lot on the computer that you own.
Is there a way to disable UEFI in the Bios? If so, would that be easier than downloading a UEFI Linux distribution?
You've got one already! Mint is fully UEFI-compatible. It's just that you've had a glitch with the installation of grub. This is the trickiest part of any install and the most likely to go wrong, but it's always correctable. While you're fixing it, you can continue to use Mint in its live form and learn more about it, so you're not losing out.
Have you checked yet if the grub bootloader is present on your efi system partition, as I suggested in my earlier post? It'll be in a separate directory and will be called something like grub64.efi.
Ok, I typed in the first code and got 'Welcome to fdisk (util - Linux 2.27.1).'
'Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
Be careful before using the write command.'
The second code I typed in came back with:
Create a new partition 1 of type 'Linux native' and of size 7.7 GiB.
Create a new partition 2 of type 'Linux swap' and size of 46.3 GiB.
Create a new partition 3 of type 'Whole disk' and of size 7.7 GiB.
Create a new Sun disklabel.
Wait.. I thought the L in your code was a 1.. Face palm
Ok, I retyped the first code and got:
Disk dev/sda: 7.7 GiB, 8273264640 bytes, 16158720 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512=512 bytes /512 bytes sector size (logical/physical) : 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum /oprimal): 512 bytes /512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xc3072e18
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sea1 * 56 16158664 7.7G c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
Well, now we know! You have an old computer with Windows 95 occupying the whole of a rather small disk (I'm assuming that last line was mis-typed and actually says "/dev/sda1"). You won't have a UEFI in there, you'll have an old-fashioned BIOS. Mint hasn't installed, and I don't know if it actually could install in 7 GB. Most people reckon you need 10 GB for a modern installation of a mainstream distro.
Next time around, try booting in BIOS compatibility mode (second item on the menu). If there's an option for erasing and replacing Windows, take it. You can't really dual-boot on a disk that size. If the install still doesn't work (and you know how to check that now), you'll have to try a smaller distro (say Puppy or AntiX Core).
btw, don't try to type commands that are in a code box. The whole purpose of "code" is that you can easily copy the commands and paste them into your terminal.
Now I'm a little confused. I bought this thing brand new and it came with windows 10 preinstalled
what I seen its specs have a 32GB and a 64GB prob ssd of some type for size "hdd"
try a different distro like slackware, dvd iso that is a straight out install, cfdsik /dev/sda you should be looking at total of aprox 32GB to 64GB of space
I take it you're planing on wiping windows all together?
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sda1 * 56 16158719 16158664 7.7G c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
mint@mint ~ $ sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt
mount: /dev/sda1 is already mounted or /mnt busy
/dev/sda1 is already mounted on /cdrom
mint@mint ~ $
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