Zorin 18.1 on external SSD will not boot

[chas]

Secure boot is on in my desktop and the external SSD with Zorin boots fine.

[chas]

@NickS

Another question based on the wording of your first post: are you still trying unsuccessfully to install Zorin on the SSD or have you installed it and trying unsuccessfully to get it to boot?

Zorin is installed and runs fine on all but the HP EliteBook.

[NickS]

So something is blocking the elite book from booting anything but windows.

I recall a similar problem someone had on an acer machine but not on HP. There @aravisian talked the poster through a process to make the computer think that the Zorin os was the fail safe boot but even that was difficult with the computer fighting to defend itself against all attempts to boot anything but windows.

The following is from Brave AI. It mentions secure boot which you already have confirmed is disabled but also something called HP sure start which I haven’t encountered on any of my HP machines.

HP EliteBook laptops often block non-Windows boot options or display an empty boot menu due to HP Sure Start security features or UEFI Secure Boot restrictions. When these protections are active, the system may refuse to recognize USB drives, Linux installers, or other non-Windows media, effectively locking the boot process to the primary Windows installation.

To resolve this, you can attempt the following fixes:

• Disable Secure Boot and Enable Legacy Support : Enter the BIOS (press F10 at startup), navigate to Advanced > Boot Options , and ensure Secure Boot is disabled while enabling Legacy Boot or UEFI Hybrid (With CSM) mode. This allows the system to recognize non-Windows bootable media.
• Reset BIOS to Defaults : Within the BIOS setup, select the option to Reset to Default settings, which can clear conflicting configurations that might be hiding boot devices.
• Perform a Hard Reset : Disconnect all peripherals, remove the battery if possible (or hold the power button for 15 seconds if non-removable), and restart to clear the Embedded Controller (EC) which may be causing the boot loop or blank menu.
• Update BIOS via Internet : If the system is stuck on a "Protected by HP Sure Start" screen, removing the SSD and connecting the laptop to the internet to allow an automatic BIOS update via HP's recovery tools can resolve the lockout.
• Check Hardware Connections : Ensure the storage drive is properly seated, as a loose SSD can cause the boot menu to appear empty or block booting entirely.

If these steps fail, the issue may require a BIOS recovery via USB using HP's official recovery tools or professional service if the hardware is locked at a deeper level

I’m not sure I like the final paragraph and you haven’t mentioned a protected by sure start screen so maybe there is nothing new here.

[NickS]

Another quick thought on the basis the only dumb questions are the ones you thought were too obvious to ask.

I assume you installed Zorin on the external SSD using your other computer (the one that it now boots correctly). If so, where is the boot manager located? Is it on the external SSD or did Zorin put it in the efi partition of the windows drive of the computer you were using to create it?

[chas]

@NickS

Another question based on the wording of your first post: are you still trying unsuccessfully to install Zorin on the SSD or have you installed it and trying unsuccessfully to get it to boot?

Zorin is successfully installed on the SSD and operates fine on 2 Dell desktops running W10 and W11 and one HP ZBook running Linux Mint. Just will not boot on the HP EliteBook running W11.

I assume the boot manager is on the SSD, since it runs fine on other PCs.

[Aravisian]

Hewlett Packard is not the company that it once was.
It is now highly proprietary.
I, for one, am not surprised to see the suggestion that HP is very controlling. They are.

That said, I have not reviewed this thread fully, but what I notice so far is what I do not see: Detailed descriptions of what the actual symptoms are.

@chas, can you provide more detail?
Plugging in the drive and mounting it, then running:

ls

or

lsblk

Or even, just running Grub Boot repair and posting the output could give some detailed pointers on what exactly is going on here.

[chas]

Don't know how to do that. It does not show in File Explorer, but did show in disk manager.
At this point, before I screw something up, I am going to stop trying and be happy it runs on 3 of my 4 machines. That is enough to evaluate it. So far I like Mint better.

[chas]

Finally found a way to run it on my EliteBook. On the Boot page, I selected run a file and I selected the first file that was listed, the I selected the line listed below in several steps. \EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi and Zorin loaded from the external SSD
I found this information on ChatGBT.