I have to leave for my evening in Australia in less than 30 minutes, but Kim, whatever problems you are encountering with installing Linux Mint Cinnamon may well be reproduced or repeated with Debian or Fedora, until/unless we can get a better handle on what is going wrong.
Typically, it is better to install Windows first, and then Linux, because Windows will try to screw over the booting sequence into Linux (referred to as Grub and the Grub Menu).
So you should put Windows back on first (if you wish to), and then we'll handle the Linux install. After Linux is installed we can blow away Windows if you wish.
If you would rather just install Linux only, then that can be done with any of the Linux distributions (distros) - for Mint you would just boot a USB stick with Mint burned to it, and when you run the installers, choose "Erase disk and install Linux".
Hope this helps a little.
Wizard/Chris (call me anything you like except late for dinner)
BTW you should do anything of this when you are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ie well -rested, not tired.
Typically, it is better to install Windows first, and then Linux, because Windows will try to screw over the booting sequence into Linux (referred to as Grub and the Grub Menu).
So you should put Windows back on first (if you wish to), and then we'll handle the Linux install. After Linux is installed we can blow away Windows if you wish.
If you would rather just install Linux only, then that can be done with any of the Linux distributions (distros) - for Mint you would just boot a USB stick with Mint burned to it, and when you run the installers, choose "Erase disk and install Linux".
Hope this helps a little.
Wizard/Chris (call me anything you like except late for dinner)

BTW you should do anything of this when you are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ie well -rested, not tired.