I have already asked this in the Mint forum but still having issues. Hoping more of you will see on this forum and have a solution. First of all I'm newbie to Linux and don't have much techie knowledge. Just your average computer user. I have Dell 5558 ruining Windows 10. I wanted to make it a duel boot with Linux. I created several Boot USB Flash drives to try different distros. I had no problem booting from the Flash drives. I decided on Mint. I partitioned my hard and with a unallocated partition to install to. I started to install Mint but stopped after it hung up with a error message I don't remember. Now when I try and boot from the Flash drive a get a error message. I tried using several Boot Creator software such Rufus,LiveLinux and unetbootin and get the same result. I ahve been told the Ubuntu installs have been messing with with the EFI variables on the motherboard. And to install a non Ubuntu distro. And also have been told to disable secure and fast Boot. I hesitant because I don't know how that will affect my computer. For the record it still normally into Windows when I don't hold down the F12 key on power up. And as I said I'm no techie and don't want to brick it.Here is the error message I keep getting:

Failed to open \EFI\BOOT\mmx64.efi - NOT FOUND
Failed to load image \EFI\BOOT\mmx64.efi: NOT FOUND
Failed to start MoKMannager: NOT FOUND
Something has gone seriously wrong: import_mok_state() failed
: Not Found

Thanks for time and input.

Unfortunately, this error message is likely the key to the mystery.

The fact that Mint cannot find the EFI partition suggests to me that something went wrong in setting up the partitions for the Mint install.

My best suggestion is to retry the install and make note of any error messages that appear (perhaps you could take pictures of them with a camera or cell phone). If you stopped the install while it was in process, it's probably unusable in any event.

well first check to make sure you have a 100 to 500 MB fat32 partition created, and marked boot, esp then 2. make sure you tell the install program to mount it /boot/efi then assign your other partitions, / (root) /home then continue your install.

MAKE SURE your partition table too is gpt and not msdos.

do everything on a take the entire hdd install, it should do this automatically.

---(dang)--
Okay, if you have not given yourself the needed space to install linix. use windows disk partition manager to free up the space you want to give to Linux, then if mint got gparted in your live OS use that to partition out your drive on you want to use for Linux first then run the install program then select "do something else" then proceed as state above.

go into BIOS and find secure boot uncheck , find fast boot (which I keep selected, I just do not use secure boot), but for argument sake, unceck fast boot, save on exit. if your PC tells you secure boot has been unabled and something else as mine does, just do what it tells you. then proceed with the next step which is booting your usb stick to install Linux.

basically the only way you're going to screw up your BIOS is if you were flashing it and turn off your pc while it is flashing.

If you post output here using code tags fromusing any of the USB sticks that will boot, there may be clues to be seen.

Sorry I was clear enough. When I get to the BIOS and select it to boot from the USB instead of the HD I get that error message. It doesn't even boot into the live "try Linux out" Linux. I get that error message (which I did take a pic of that's how I know what it said)for about 5 seconds and then the computer shirts down. I never get to any start up screen or command prompt. It will boot from the Windows Recovery USB Flash drive. And also Windows when normally powered up. It just doesn't want to boot off a Linux Flash drive. The distros that I have tried were Ubuntu or Ubuntu based. So could that the problem?

I have not made a bootable usb stick in windows in years, so I do not know what works, and what does not. getting dirty downloads of the iso, for me is not something that happens just by clicking download it and let to do its thing. so I'd think it is more the means being used to create a bootable usb stick then the iso.

How many are at your disposal? Can you make one that isn't Ubuntu-based? Knoppix, Mageia, openSUSE, Fedora, PClinuxOS, CentOS? Knoppix is the granddaddy of all live distros. If you cannot boot Knoppix, you probably cannot boot anything.
Possibly. Ubuntu does some things differently than other distros. Those that are based on ubuntu use the same directory in the ESP partition, so things can get clobbered by mixing it with various distros based on it.

I will try tomorrow. Which one in your opinion is the closest to Mint Cinnamon? I thought about Manjaro but heard Arch is more for expreinced users.

Mint is the only distro on which I have Cinnamon installed. Cinnamon is available in Fedora, Mageia and openSUSE of those I listed. In openSUSE, the main desktop selection menu only offers KDE and Gnome, but in detailed package selection around 10 or more different desktops can be selected. I haven't done fresh installations of Fedora or Mageia in a very long time in which I didn't limit initial installation to the most basic which could boot to a shell login prompt, so don't know how simple it might be to choose Cinnamon in them. Fedora's default is Gnome. Last I checked, Mageia's default was KDE.

that is Arch, not its knock offs manjaro, arcoLinux,archman are three that I've played with and work rather well other than the slight wifi issues I've experiences as of late, not connecting to public no wpa security wifi. other than that I'd say try one of them if not all of them.

If I do a reinstall of Windows would that reset the Boot manager/system.So live boot/install from a Flash Drive like before the problems started? Or is there a way to reset the Boot program. I've already made sure it's running the latest version.

no < think you will still have to personally remove the dir in /efi that is if Windows does not .. but say you wipe your entire drive then set it up for windows to install on part of it, then it will.

what part is messing up now?
you got directories in /efi
you got a linux installed?
you can manually remove and update the efibootmgr

to find entries,
to remove entries
then run the first command to check it.

I don't have Linux installed. I'm trying to install Mint.But after a aborted install attempt now I can't boot off the Flash drive at all. I've tried several distros but the only distro I gotten to work is openSUSE. Maybe because it uses YaST. I been told Ubuntu and its
derivatives can mess up the Boot manager. If you read my first post on this thread it explains the situation.

if you can still boot windows wihtout issue then leave it alone. as it looks like you have not yet been able to even write Linux to your hdd.

Whereas, you're not able to make a good usb stick to install any Linux/GNU having to use Windows and whatever bit of software to get that created.

I do not know of any that work without issues, because I do not use windows to create usb sticks to do anything.

What happens when you try?