OK first of all, let's see, Dick, if the Unetbootin-burnt thumb drive works OK?
I'd like you to start from a powered-down state on the Toshiba, no T5 yet.
Do you remember how to get into your Setup? It would likely have been two Function keys that did it, out of -
One of the successful candidates would take you straight to your full Setup facility, the other would take you straight to Boot Order, perhaps on a one-time basis. Remember one of them had F5 and F6 as a means of moving items up and down.
So once you have established that -
Insert the stick and then power up. Interrupt the boot process to boot from the thumb drive first.
See if it boots in to a Linux Mint 18.3 'Sylvia' Cinnamon Desktop. It will have an Install icon on the desktop near top left, maybe 3 icons down.
If that does not work, let us know. Remember you can click the Menu button bottom left, start to type in Welcome and click that and it will tell you what you are in.
If it DOES work, I'd like you to do the following, in any order:
- Right-click anywhere on the Desktop, choose New ... file, and click. Call the file TestPersist and enter it. Type in "does this work?", save and close.
- Right-click anywhere on the Desktop, choose change background. Pick a background you like.
- Go to Menu button, there will be a left-hand pane. Mouse over to Settings (intermeshing cogs icon) and click, a window will appear with 4 categories.
- Find Screensaver and open its window. Go to Settings and change from default time to Never and exit that
- Find Power Management and open its window. Presuming you have the laptop on Mains Power, and not Battery, set up Mains or A/C from default (30 mins?) to Never and exit
- Find mouse and keyboard and enter it, move the cursor size bar to large, it will grow, and exit
Following these changes, in the System Tray bottom right of Desktop will be a small icon of a bust (human head), click and choose to restart.
Restart, follow the same procedure to get back into your Live environment (through Setup), and when you get to the Desktop, see if your changes have "persisted".
If they HAVE, reward yourself by double-clicking the file TestPersist and adding a line "Yes, it does, you beauty!!", save and exit.
You can then power down again. Wait 20 seconds or so and remove the stick (always a good idea to wait a few secs, in case read/write operations are completing) and next we will look at installing.
Good luck
Wizard