All good.
Unfortunately, I'm stuck at #2. Trying to press E when I'm at the Try or Install screen doesn't do anything except try to change the install language. (English, Espanol, etc.)
The 'e' option works best on the installed ssd/hdd grub, getting it to edit on usb can be a pain.
You can boot into the live cd if your having issues getting the grub edit screen. Open terminal in zorin live image(ctrl + alt + t) and type:
sudo gedit /etc/default/grub
Then edit as it says. Save and close the editor. At the command line type:
sudo update-grub
Reboot. In disk manager in zorin you should see the drive now. If you do the installer will to.
Another suggestion is, instead of hitting e, hit the esc key.
That error means that you were not running as Root.
Also, changing grub from within Try Zorin... I do not believe this will work because the session of grub has already been run to get you to that point.
Boot the Live USB, then when you see the splash screen, start bapping at the esc key (instead of the e key.)
The way grub will look in this screen will be different from how it appears in terminal. Instead of moving to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT, just scan the page for quiet splash and insert the text nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=200 right after it, so it is quiet splash nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=200
Once this is done, hit ctrl+x to Exit this editor and proceed as normal. Then when you open the installer, it should be able to see the SSD.
He means check the SHA256 which is the first step here Before you install which I understrand you have done.
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Okay, I pressed ESC... I got to something that looked a bit like a DOS screen... I found quiet splash and entered in the code you suggested and then...!
...everything happened pretty much the exact same. At the very very VERY least, in between I think the "do you want to connect to the internet" screens and the screen when it ought to be recognizing my 
SSD, it took its sweet time. That was different. It at least seemed to have a more thorough look around, but still turned up nothing.
I'm a bit confused... MOST of the world uses laptops... MOST of the world's laptops carry SSDs, right? Zorin can't possibly be marketing only toward build-it-yourself tower computer users who-for-some-reason-insist-on-HDDs, can they? I mean their website features laptops! I can't be the only person who's dealt with this if this is the common experience for people with laptops trying to make the switch, can I?
Speaking as someone with 2 other laptops in the house I'm wanting to switch over, I'm not feeling super confident right now. 
Can anyone suggest what would be the Gold Standard of tutorials so I can see if there's anything I still haven't done in the Windows side of things?
Barring this... I'm not against cracking the laptop open and installing a brand new SSD.... IF it meant that I wasn't going to run into this issue. Like, if Windows is somehow blocking me, I'm happy to just buy a brand new SSD and install it that way. It'll be more expensive, but it would get me what I want - which is Bill Gates out of my life.
That said, I'm not keen to spend the $$ on an SSD if it just means I'm going to hit the same roadblock.
Thanks for sticking with me!
These are pretty clear assumptions; I would say that most notebooks use HDD, not SSD.
No, Zorin is marketed toward the average user. This is not a common experience, by any means. The use of NVMe SSD is also not Common. It is structured differently than your usual SSD.
We feel your pain. Most of us that have been here in this thread have been right beside you, trying to troubleshoot. The lack of commonality is part of why we are all struggling with this issue. If it was common, a bunch of us would be speaking up with, "Oh, yeah... that. Had that. Fixed it with this."
Speaking for myself, I have never had this happen. I have installed Zorin for myself and for many others, on SSD and on HDD and never have seen this particular problem. Speaking on behalf of others; the unusual case that the HDD was not seen was due to the HDD malfunctioning, which is what I originally thought was likely the case with you, until you said NVMe.
Unusually the one person I asked who used NVMe with an Ubuntu install said you must do the Polar Opposite: Go into BIOS and set to RAID instead of AHCI. He swore it worked. It might be worth trying out for you, but if it fails, please be sure to go back in and change it back.
NVMe is PCIe and it is notable that this type of hardware is structured differently and therefore, communicates differently with the system.
Really, the tutorials you have seen are pretty much high standard- they work for the vast majority of users. You can easily tell, with over 1 million users, the Zorin Forum is not hopping crazy with users begging for help getting their SSD to show up.
You have a manufacturer that wanted to set itself apart from its competition by up-selling something different in the hardware in hopes of it boosting sales. Yes, if you replaced the NVMe SSD with a standard HDD or SDD or even installed on an external SSD or HDD it could resolve your issue. But let's first try the other guys suggestion of setting BIOS to RAID.
Check if you can install. If not, keeping it on RAID, reboot;
Then esc key and the Grub parameter nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=200 again and check if the installer can see the SSD...
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Thanks mate, I appreciate you sticking with me on this. I agree it's not logical that this would be a common issue. My frustrated emotions ran away with me! 
I'll give this a try. It's the "please be sure to go back in and change it back" part that fills me with a bit of dread. I'm irritatingly concerned that I'll brick the whole thing and have dumped AU$2.5k down the toilet.
lol unfortunately, I didn't even check the specs... But even if I had, I wouldn't have known the issue would have arisen... Ah well. 
So, just to confirm:
- Go into BIOS and set to RAID
- Try the installer normally and if I can see my SSD, happy days, if not, reboot leaving it in RAID
- Hit the
ESCkey and get into the dos-looking thing and enter the details you gave me afterquiet splash - Roll the dice, and if I can see my SSD, happy days, if not, then I would shut down, take my flash drive out, startup and get into BIOS where I change RAID back to whatever it was to start with
Correct?
UPDATE!
It's working!! (Installing as we speak! 
)
I'll keep you posted... 
TYTYTY
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This is exceptionally unlikely.
No, and I wouldn't have noticed - hindsight is always fun. 
Yep, spot on.
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Ah, that solved the mystery. There is this newish Acer laptop in our household which resists all my effort to install Linux on it. And yes, it dose have an NVMe SSD!
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Well.
Try it out and please report back the results.
I dub thee, dannyjz, RAIDer of the Lost drive.
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Love it. Thanks so much to you and everyone else who chipped in along the way. Seriously would have given up if it hadn't been for your help. 
I'll try to learn as much as I can and pay it forward when possible.
As of right now, I'm typing this message on my new Zorin OS computer and enjoying getting to know it.
Now, I get to try and make it as compatible with the machine as possible.
One thing I noticed however... is that now when I power up, it basically gives me boot options and one of those remains Windows, even though I selected to install Zorin over the top of Windows and erase everything. Any ideas there?
Yes, the Boot Record on the Motherboard shows Windows.
One simple hack you could do is, open a terminal and
sudo nano /etc/default/grub
Add this line to the end of it: GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=true, ctrl+x to exit, then hit the y key to say yes to save then hit the enter key to save as current configuration.
Terminal will revert to normal appearance. Update the grub:
sudo update-grub
Reboot and test. The downside of this is If you dual boot another system later, it won't show up. Don't forget that you did this LOL.
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lol yeah I think I'll just leave it for now. It auto loads anyway after a while. I'm just wanting to ensure that Bill Gates isn't somewhere lurking in the dark depths of my computer. #paranoid
No, that is likely just the bootloader on its own tiny partition on the hard drive. Another trick you might do is just make that autoloader faster. Decrease the timeout time before it tires of waiting on your selection.
sudo nano /etc/default/grub
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
That is ten seconds wait time. You can lower this to say, Two seconds...
GRUB_TIMEOUT=2
I do not recommend making this a 1 or 0. You want that little gap there in case you ever need to boot into the Recovery menu.
I don't know who manufactured your NVMe drive, but the Samsung drives work without that modification... I've been using zorin 15.3 and 16 (alpha and beta) in my Asus a17 tuf gaming laptop with 2 Samsung 970 NVMe terabyte drives, without modification. I'm glad you got it working. I learned something from your issue, thank you.
Hey all! First, Zorin's been going well since I installed.
The issue I'm facing is workflow. As far as working, there are a number of programs that I'm simply either dissatisfied with the Linux-alternatives of, or I'm unwilling to learn the new way of doing things. (Lazy, I know!)
I don't know if this O/S battle is the hill I'm willing to die on, if it means a decrease in my overall productivity to a relatively substantial degree.
I haven't decided yet, but I wanted to follow-up in this channel because there's a small history of HOW I got Zorin installed in the first place, with your assistance.
I'm wondering if anyone has any pointers for what I'd need to do in order to switch back. Any insight re: bootloaders and partitions and all that stuff would be much appreciated. Thanks!
As with any software, there is a learning curve and getting used to where things are. I wouldn't recommend a revert since you're already on your way to being M$ free. You could opt to try your most common win programs in wine, or dual boot your system, making that unchanged grub choice useful. Libre office comes close to the abilities of M$ office. But since you don't specify the programs you are having issue with, it's difficult if not impossible to recommend similar software.
In zorin it takes me less than ten minutes to check for updates, check my mail and begin doing whatever i set out for (usually something to do with programming). In windows i am waiting sometimes a good fifteen minutes for updates, email is almost as quick before possibly rebooting and getting to work. It really does depend on what you do and use.