I'm a Windows user trying to learn Linux on an older Toshiba Satellite L675-06K from around 2012. It has an Intel Core i3-370M processor, 4GB of DDR3 memory, and a 120GB hard drive. Windows 7 still installs and boots normally, so the laptop itself appears to work.
I first installed Linux Mint Cinnamon 22.3 from a verified USB made with Etcher. The installation completed without errors, but the laptop failed to boot after restarting. I then wiped the drive and tried again, including manually creating partitions, but the result was the same. The installer mentioned an EFI partition at one point and later complained about needing about 1MB for boot-related space.
I also reinstalled Windows 7 successfully, then tried setting up a dual boot with Mint on the remaining space. Both the manual and automatic dual-boot installations reported success but failed to boot afterward. I later created a BIOS/MBR-style installer with Rufus and tried a clean Mint installation, compatibility mode, and Mint Xfce. These attempts sometimes show a few startup messages before ending at a black screen, while other attempts simply report a boot failure when selecting the hard drive.
This laptop does not support Secure Boot, and I believe it uses legacy BIOS rather than UEFI. Do I need to use Mint MATE or another lightweight distribution, or is there a BIOS/GRUB or graphics setting I should fix first? I'd prefer a desktop that feels somewhat familiar to Windows.
4 Answers
You could test the hardware and graphics path with a Debian installer that offers a text-based installation, rather than relying on a graphical live installer. If that installs and boots, the issue is probably the live environment or video driver. From the GRUB menu, also try the advanced or recovery entry and look for a failsafe option. `nomodeset` is worth testing temporarily; if it works, you can then install the appropriate graphics driver or adjust the boot settings permanently.
Since this machine appears to be legacy BIOS-only, the bootloader must be installed to the disk itself, such as `/dev/sda`, not to a partition like `/dev/sda1`. The disk should generally use an MBR partition table for this setup, and the installer should be booted in legacy mode rather than a UEFI mode. The lack of an EFI partition is not automatically an error on a BIOS installation. If the installation completes but the firmware says the disk is not bootable, checking the GRUB installation target and the BIOS boot order is more important than switching from Cinnamon to MATE.
The exact startup messages would be very useful here. Linux normally displays more information than Windows, so try taking a photo or recording the screen when it fails. If the GRUB menu appears, highlight the normal boot option and press `e`. Remove `quiet` and `splash` from the Linux line, then add `nomodeset` to the line containing `root=`. That can help determine whether the black screen is a graphics-driver problem rather than an installation problem. Also search using the exact Toshiba model, since its graphics hardware may need a specific workaround.
It usually flashes some text and then goes to the boot-device selection screen. Choosing the hard drive gives a boot failure message. I’ll capture the messages next time so I can see exactly where it stops.
Ventoy is another way to prepare the USB and can boot in either legacy BIOS or UEFI mode, which may help rule out a USB-creation mismatch. More importantly, make sure the firmware and installer are using the same mode: don’t install in UEFI mode and then try to boot the disk in legacy mode, or vice versa. With this older laptop, a clean MBR/legacy installation with GRUB written to the whole drive is the simplest configuration to test first.
I had been assuming the black screen meant the distribution was too demanding, which is why I tried Xfce. I’ll try the text-based installer and the advanced boot options before changing distributions again.