Lenovo Thinkpad E540 OEM installation

[Universal_Adjuster]

I have been trying to install Linux Mint on an old Thinkpad E540 i5 processor with 500Gb HD and 16 GB ram. I previously installed without problems onto an older Toshiba Satellite and am trying to make these two old retired machines recovered from my business available to someone else rather than dump to landfill. The HD has been reformatted and security overwritten using CCleaner so that the old operating system (Windows 10 Pro) and old files are completely removed.
The chosen OS is Linux Mint 20.1 Cinnamon. I have checked the download according to the instructions and there appears to be no integrity fault and it is legitimately signed. When I boot Lenovo Mint appears to run fine from the USB stick. When I run the installation it all appears to progress as expected. When I reboot all I get are the boot menu offerings:-
ubuuntu
ATAPI CDO : HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GU90N
ATA HDDO: ST500LM000-1EJ162
PCI LAN
selecting any of these just returns me to the boot menu

I have checked the forum for Lenovo E540 installation without finding anything clearly relevant to solve this problem.

During installation one screen shows the following error messages:
[0.222506] ACPI error Need type [reference] found [integer] 000000002356
34a5 (2019086/exresop-66)
[0222519] ACPI error: AE Operand_type while resolving operands for [ST core] (20190819/dswexec-431)
[0222536] ACPI error abort method \_PR CPU 0._PDC due to previous error (AE_operand_type) 201908167 parse-529)
[0.501791] Initramfs unpacking failed : decoding failed

It will be appreciated if anyone can point me at a solution.

[antikythera]

turn off secureboot and fastboot in BIOS and try again. make sure the storage controller is in AHCI mode too if that is an option available.

add the following to the boot command instead of quiet splash

noapic noacpi nosplash irqpoll

Ignore the initramfs error for now, it's to do with the way the kernel image is being compressed (lz4 instead of gzip) but won't actually stop the system booting.

[Universal_Adjuster]

Antikythera
Thank you for the advice. I at last found some time to implement the steps you recommended. ie
1. turn off secureboot and fastboot in BIOS
2. confirmed storage controller is in AHCI mode

I was not able to work out how to effect:
3. "add the following to the boot command instead of
quiet splash
noapic noacpi nosplash irqpoll"

However having done everything else I still get the same problem.
Can you tell me how to implement 3 please?
When installing Linux Mint 20.1 Cinnamon from the USB stick the procedure reports their is already an installation of Linux Mint 20.1 and offers to either instal alongside or ovewrite it. I have selected overwrite

[antikythera]

scroll down, enlarge the video and watch, use the same method to add those terms

https://linuxmint.com/rel_ulyssa_mate.php

[Universal_Adjuster]

I have tried this method adapting to slightly different code for Linux Mint 20.1 Cinnamon 64 bit at
set gfxpayload=keep
linux /casper/vmlinuz file /cdrom/preseed/linuxmint.seed boot=casper iso-scan/filename=s(iso_path) nomodeset_$vt_handoff_
initrd /casper/initrd/lz
I have then hit ctrl X to start
the system shows a lot of code which means nothing to me. Linux Mint 20.1 launches and I have run the installation again. I have selected the option to overwrite the existing installation. When I restart I get the same problem?

[sideband]

I have owned and used a Thinkpad E540 for many many years purchased new with Ubuntu installed. I can't add to the advice already given but I can at least provide the assurance that the E540 is an excellent Linux Mint/Linux candidate

I've lost count of the multiple Linux Mint installs on my E540, installs to the primary drive, to the M.2 drive, to the extra drive added when the DVD was replaced with an SSD mount and frequently to external drives on a USB SATA adapter

There has never been any problem with any Linux Mint, or Linux, install on any of the drives - all have been without exception "legacy boots" from USB though the DVD drive was used before conversion. I have never needed to modify or add to the boot process in any way

So reading about the problems described above I am fairly certain there is probably a hardware anomaly with the E540, possibly an issue with the hard drive. It would be worthwhile substituting another drive...mine is a 120 GB SSD, or installing and trying an M.2 drive or trying an install to an external drive on a USB SATA cable...something I do frequently as the E540 is my very frequently used test bed for Linux in general as the primary drive and the M.2 drive are so easy to access

I boot drives other than the primary from the boot menu F12

Might be worth updating the BIOS in case there were issues with UEFI/legacy boot, certainly the latest Lenovo BIOS is fine on my E540