As the title says, I am a tech newbie that has decided they want to begin learning Linux, however I am having trouble at the start line. The problem is that I cannot get my computer to see the iso files in my USB drive and it just keeps saying to reboot or insert a boot device and press a key.
I have a brand new 1TB HDD unallocated in my pc. I currently have Windows 10 on a SSD. I downloaded Ubuntu 16.04 and later 16.10 images onto the same flash drive. I have tried to change the Boot Order in every way with the Flash Drive first reading that there were weird problem with Ubuntu and USB 3.0 at one point. I have tried altering the Secure Boot options. I have tried to manually select the device to boot from, where the menu will give me both the SanDisk (the flash drive) and UEFI:SanDisk. Booting from SanDisk gives the "insert a boot device" message and the UEFI: SanDisk just boots into Windows. I have copied the images to another known good Flash Drive and received the same results. Lastly I tried unplugging the SSD where Windows is installed and just leaving the new HDD plugged in and Flash Drive plugged in, to no avail. Any help would be appreciated.
As a side note, I have accomplished a dual-boot once before, on my laptop with Windows 10 and Kali Linux, just by changing the Boot Order and setting the Boot to Legacy.
Lastly, this is my first post on the Level1Techs Forums, so Hello Everyone!
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How are you putting the iso files on your flash drive?
Are you using a program like Rufus?
I was not. I was straight downloading from http://releases.ubuntu.com/16.04/ and http://releases.ubuntu.com/16.10/ and copying the files onto the flash drive. I will look into Rufus right now. Is downloading a program for iso files a common thing? I did not come across any mention of another program when looking into dual booting.
There are few ways to write an ISO file to a USB drive for installation.
Rufus is a good one for Windows.
Once you get on linux you can use DD command and there are also some built in graphical utilities in some of the distros.
If you are still rocking a dvd drive you can burn the iso to a cd and boot from there.
You do not just copy the ISO for an OS files into the flash disk...You need an application that will make the live installation on the flash dive "bootable". Without an application you need to do a lot of manual steps...Especially in
Windows. You will not see a mention in most guides since it is considered common knowledge.
If you are in windows rufus is a good choice. Unetbootin is another for Win/Linux/Mac. Make the flash drive using one of them...
Using Rufus worked. Would have gotten back sooner but had errands to run and was busy trying to set things up in the new OS. Thank you for the help!
I will definitely keep that in mind for the next time. I didn't remember doing it before with Kali, but it was a while ago, so may have just let that piece of knowledge slip.
No problem glad it worked out for you.
Only semi-related but I'm curious. Do you have any plans of ditching Win 10 altogether?
Yes I do. Right now I have quite a bit to learn and understand, but once I feel I can get anything I would need or want working on Linux in one way or another, I don't think I would really want to keep Windows.
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I share similar sentiments. After beta testing it in Windows Insider I decided to defer back to Win 8.1. That alone became a nightmare. My hard drive seriously needed scrubbing - not just formatting - before I could get back 8.1. But I know nothing of Linux aside from playing around with the o/s on a DVD. I'm not interested in any key logger editions and apparently that's all that Microsoft wants their customers to use.
Another newbie here. I am interested in trying out something similar to the op but i would like to boot ubuntu directly from the usb so i can leave my current system alone and also use it on other older systems i have by just switching the boot order in bios. If that makes sense. Any help would be appreciated thanks.
Have you tried running a liveusb for a bit? It is not that great to run off of. At least when I have done so before on a usb 2.0 flash drive. May want to try it out before going that route
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I tried Mint on my last build. It worked out pretty good except for the graphics issue. Had no problem tho running it on a DVD except I didn't have much room. USB might be a good choice. I wonder if it will run in 3.1. 
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I am just throwing out an alternative that worked for me.
When I was experimenting with Linux I setup a Virtual Machine with Manjaro running in a window. I didn't want to mess with a dual boot and for an initial foray into Linux it worked well enough. I wasn't doing anything very advanced with it though.
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I second that...Plus the VM is portable in a usb as well...
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