Hi
@AndyND, and welcome to the forums! Installing any operating system is risky, and it is very easy for a new Linux user to make simple mistakes during the installation process. Because your photos are stored on the same physical drive that you want to install Linux, I cannot overemphasize that you should back up those photos to another location or another hard drive. If you make a newbie mistake, you could lose them, and no one wants you to get a bitter taste of Linux like that.
Linux does not refer to drives or partitions with letters such as C: D: E: and F: --- instead, because you have 2 physical drives, you would see one drive referenced as /dev/sda and the other drive referenced as /dev/sdb --- and partitions would look like /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2, and then /dev/sdb1 and/dev/sdb2. The Linux installer has a section for partitioning so you can tell it where to put Linux, and you would need to carefully note which partition matches the size of your E: drive to install it there. Linux will also ask you in the installer where you want to put the "bootloader" because Windows will not recognize Linux. You would normally choose /dev/sda for the bootloader (the Linux bootloader is called GRUB), and when your system starts the GRUB menu will give you 10 seconds to choose Windows, but it defaults to Linux. This can be trouble later if you want to remove Linux because you will need to restore the Windows bootloader.
So, the decision to keep going is up to you. I would usually suggest instead that you download a few Linux versions and install them to USB sticks or DVD and test it out for awhile before you commit to installing. Or you can install
VirtualBox in Windows and then install Linux in VirtualBox as a "virtual machine" to test it out. You can delete and install new virtual machines to explore different versions, or run many versions if you have enough hard drive space.
I'm not a gamer, so I have very little advice about that. You can't play most Windows games in Linux, as far as I know, but there are some things, like Steam games, that are possible. Some Windows games will run under "Wine" (a special application made to run Windows apps), and some old DOS-based games can be run under
DOSBox if you like that sort of stuff. I'm sure others here can help you more with gaming questions.
Cheers!