<SOLVED> LM Cinnamon 20.1 boot time above 5 min.

[SMG]

Pressed the Power button, and then immediately pressed F10 multiple times for about 30 seconds,

And you are pressing F10 for what reason? Is that how you can select which boot medium your computer uses?

then this error message below popped up for ~2 seconds and then dissappeared:
Unexpected return from initial read: Device Error. buffersize 0
Failed to load image \EFI\ubuntu\grub64.efi: Device Error
start_image() returned Device Error

Right after the error message above disappeared, the GNU GRUB menu [in EFI mode] appeared; (stopped the timer)

Your computer has UEFI. Usually how that works is there is a setting in BIOS/UEFI and there is an efi boot section on your hard disk. The efibootmgr output you posted earlier is how the firmware (BIOS/UEFI) is set to boot the computer. I do not normally help troubleshoot those types of issues, so I'm not sure if the info you posted earlier is what one would normally expect to see. To me, it seemed like there is something left over from another install that might be causing an issue? But I do not have enough experience to know for sure.

After the information in the firmware, the next step is the boot sector where it checks for any exisiting EFI partitions. If there is an existing EFI partition on the disk, the live session will use it even though the Mint session is booting from the USB. The fact you are seeing an error message both for the live session and for the installed Mint seems to indicate to me there is an issue with that EFI partition. I have not yet done enough troubleshooting with EFI partitions to be able to give advice on what to check or do. Maybe someone else will be able to do so.

20210612_112142.jpg

I have selected Linux Mint 20.1 [compatibility mode] option and pressed Enter, and started timer again simultaneously.

Is there a specific reason you selected Compatibility Mode? When running in Compatibility Mode many of the drivers are disabled including the ones for graphics. Since your computer has both Intel and Nvidia graphics, I would expect the Intel graphics work if you use the first option (no compatibility mode).

The fact booting without graphics drivers in the live session is faster than when booting from the hard drive could indicate an issue with the graphics drivers, but I already noticed the Nvidia anomalies in the log which I mentioned earlier.

However I have discovered other menus while playing around:
This appeared when I cannot access the above Grub or pressing Shift F10 together : not so sure

20210612_113008.jpg

When you install Mint and only have Mint on the hard drive, the computer normally bypasses grub unless you have set up the install to use grub. If you are seeing this when you do not press F10, that seems to indicate the default boot order of your computer is to boot from the hard drive before booting from USBs and you have your default set up to boot to grub instead of bypassing it.

Another detail; is when I noticed my installation/live USB boot details. This screen -I believe is- from my USB boot, which I accessed via writing some commands (boot ubuntu, exit. etc) on the minimal-bash like menu.

I do not understand what you mean by this. We do not normally instruct people to write commands from any of the boot menus, so I am not sure exactly what you are doing in this situation.

This image below looks like BIOS mode menu rather than EFI mode.
20210612_113829.jpg
Would it be a problem also ?

If you can not get into your computer's BIOS/UEFI to set up whether it boots in UEFI mode or BIOS-compatibility mode, then you do not want to be booting in BIOS mode on a computer set up to use EFI which it appears your computer is set up to do. One should not mix the modes.

What is the history of the computer regarding what operating systems were on it?

[stevengarland]

You may be getting way off into la la land here. Have you tried simply cleaning your ssd using Parted Magic (for example), after saving what you really need to keep elsewhere, then doing a truly install of your desired Mint program. There are more simple programs for old computers such a xfce. Simple is best.

[mtminty]

Thank you all for all the efforts provided so far.

* First, I have prepared a LM 20.1 bootable USB stick on Linux mint - ( checked the hashes, verified signatures )

* then, referring to the post here https://www.groovypost.com/howto/fix-wi ... %20hit%20. I have tried to fix MBR with BOOTREC.

I used my - Windows 10 USB Bootable Flash Drive.
After booting into setup, chose the Repair Computer option > Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Command Prompt.
Once the command prompt up on screen: type BOOTREC /FIXMBR and pressed <Enter>.

Code: Select all

X:\Sources>BOOTREC /FIXMBR
The operation completed successfully.

then shutdown.

I have also clean installed Linux Mint from USB drive. (erased all my SSD disk)

I have restarted the computer and noticed NO errors in booting Linux Mint again.
Startup time decreased to two and a half minutes. Testing the for the last two days.
Not so fast but better than previous experience.

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mt@minty:~$ systemd-analyze
Startup finished in 4.730s (kernel) + 5.439s (userspace) = 10.169s 
graphical.target reached after 5.416s in userspace

Thank you all.