On my Laptop (legacy) and my Tower (UEFI) I have to ...on start keep tapping different Keys to bring up the Boot Menu and then select my Flash Drive...yours would be the same.
This might help...https://www.howtogeek.com/56958/htg-explains-how-uefi-will-replace-the-bios/
I have no problem accessing BIOS w/ F10 or interrupting start up w/ Esc for start up options like Boot Options. Problem is my SanDisk USB drive that contains Mint 21.2 w/ persistence that was burned with Rufus is never recognized as a boot able device. Win10 recognizes it as such with an active partition.Your computer might need help from you. As soon as you turn on the computer and notice the screen coming on, pressESC
escape key. This key might be different according to your computer's make and model. You will have to consult the user's manual for it.
Then it should display a menu, or at least a screen for "BIOS", where you could select an EFI file to boot from. On my ageing HP laptop, I get a menu which has one "debian" entry and two "Ubuntu" entries coming from internal disk. If I start from pluggable disk then it should have the name of the make of that disk (Kingston, Sandisk etc). That is the one to choose.
Otherwise the "BIOS" should present a screen to conduct you to the other screen I just described. On one of my computers once I had to go even further, ask it to create an entry to boot with in the next time, by looking for the EFI file but it refused to proceed to boot right then and there.
Per System Information my computer boots in legacy mode. My BIOS settings show both legacy and UEFI checked. Unchecking UEFI and booting is no problem. Unchecking legacy is a problem as that is the active partition. I upgraded Win7 to Win10 while MS was still offering free upgrades. First time I never did a fresh OS install.
Both legacy and UEFI boot order has USB as the first device. When I power on with my USB drive plugged in and select Boot Options at start up w /F9 only my SATA HD shows as an option under legacy or UEFI.
Hold the phone. Something wendy-lebaron wrote just made me think I have another F9 Start Up option under legacy and UEFI - boot from file. I've been looking for my SanDisk or any reference to another boot able device all this time. I will try boot from file.
bob466, I had already read the howtogeek article but thanks. It was a good refresher and updater for me as I haven't dealt with BIOS issues in years.
I'm not throwing in the towel. I just thought I'd plug away at this and start a new post in a more appropriate forum if I needed help.@gojisan, I think you're throwing in the towel far too early.
I'm doing this on my one and only computer, hence the live USB approach. When I get to explore Linux live from a USB drive, and I will, I'll consider utilizing existing resources or investing in additional resources if I think it's a good fit for me.
I have an HP laptop w/ docking station, external monitor for dual displays and a two drive SATA caddy attached to the dock via USB that I use for redundant data backups. My peripherals are a Brother networked color laser printer and an Epson flat bed scanner connected via USB.
Thanks to all again. I'll see what boot from file does.