Thank you ahead of time, You Amazing Community- New to Linux. I had backed up my files weeks ago. I am upgrading a 2012 HP Pavilion (p7-1236s) desktop that was upgraded from W7 to W10 five years ago. It currently has BIOS 7.08, an Intel Core i3-2120 CPU @ 3.30GHz, 32 MB Intel HD Graphics, 64 bit OS, on a Joshua-H61-uATX board (Sandy Bridge), SSID: 2AE3, and upgraded power supply to 650W. After an MS update, the original HP 1 TB Mechanical HD crashed. I had wanted to update the BIOS to 7.16 but all HP BIOS files for the system, but could not locate one because HP has apparently closed all BIOS update files from that period of time. Checks on the system showed CPU, RAM (16 GB), HD Connection, Graphics, Optical Drives, Sound, etc passed except for one 303 Error on the HD- hence the failing of the drive. I decided to upgrade the HP to a new SanDisk SSD 480 GB immediately until the 2TB Crucial BX500 2TB 3D NAND SATA SSD, along with the new Intel Core i5-2500K-2nd Gen Sandy Bridge Quad-Core 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W HD Graphics 3000 Desktop Processor, and the new ASUS Dual NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 6 GB OC Edition Graphics card (PCie 4.0, 6 GB GDDR6 Memory, HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 1.4a, 2-slot Design, Axial tech Fan, OdB Technology-DUAL-RTX3050-O6G arrived in a couple weeks. I want the PC to last for my husband for several years. He is not a gamer; however, he does love music and likes things to move quickly when working with multiple browser tabs. I first attempted to restore the original disk to factory settings, and it stalled for 7 hours. The next morning I tried to use a W10 restore disk and it, too failed. I then removed the old original HP HD and installed the new SanDisk SSD. As I DO NOT want to return to Windows, I purchased Zorin Pro, downloaded it directly from the Zorin website, and used Balena Etcher to format a 32 GB flash drive with it. I searched all through the Boot Menu to try and find Fast Boot to disable, but that option is not on any menu. I disabled several other settings including Palette Snooping, SERR# Generation, NIC PXE Option ROM, Network Boot. I disabled UEFI and all options under it and Enabled Legacy with the Boot first to the USB. I restarted PC, booted without trouble to the thumb drive (which was in a back of unit black USB), Zorin asked which version, I chose the one with Nvidia drivers and Zorin began its check files, cleared and Zorin launched the mountain desktop. I chose to trial first, everything seemed to work ok, sound, apps, etc. I double clicked on the Install Zorin OS 18.1 on the desktop and it began the official install. The install completed and prompted to remove the disk and reboot. I complied. When it rebooted, I received an Error: No Boot disk has been detected. I shut down and tried one more time this time it gave the same error and then went to a pink screen. I went back into the F10 and turned the UEFI back on and tried again. Again it threw a No Boot disk detected and went to Pink screen. I F10 again and now could see Zorin OS listed under UEFI. I disabled Legacy and enabled Zorin OS and tried again. Nope, same issue, it would show the Z logo and then the little logo and then go Pink every time. I tried tapping ESC to go to black menu, pressed e, then added a space and nomodeset to the end of the Linux line and pressed F10 to boot again. Then the next book I got a Zorin Menu I chose the first option and got a "Fatal Exception in interrupt". At this point, I'm wondering if I should not keep trying anymore, wait and install all the new hardware when it arrives and then try and do another clean install. I was going to make the 2TB the main drive and the 480 GB a slave for photos etc. Have I missed anything, I don't know what to do from here to make this work. Thanks! Right now I'm booted to the temporary trial. Thanks for any all suggestions/help/guidance!
This could indicate in corrupted driver. Either with bad .iso file or the nvidia driver (pink screen). Try re-download the .iso and run checksum before putting it on an USB and afterwards (for safty).
As with nvidia card, if you get to the login screen. Click the username, a cog will appear. Switch it away from Wayland.
In addition to @Storm suggestions, I would recommend doing everything in UEFI as you say your BIOS will handle either and you did some switching back and forth before if I understand right. Set up your bootstick with GPT option not MBR (Rufus and Ventoy both give option if I recall). Proactively add the nomodeset command when you reach the relevant installation menu. And after installation, if you get a problem booting with the first grub option, try again and select advanced options and go with an older kernel.
Good luck and let us know how you do.
Welcome to the forum!
Is Secure Boot in BIOS disabled? Because of the UEFI and Legacy, I would suggest to let it in UEFI Mode. Then download from Zorin again an ISO and verfiy the Checksum. If You still have a Windows Machine, I can recommend Rufus to create the Bootstick.
Choose in Rufus on the ''Partition Sheme'' Option GPT for Your UEFI BIOS. Then start the Stick and choose the non-Graphics Driver Option. And install Zorin offline or at least without installing Updates. Installing Drivers and Updates, You can do after the Installation.