What's the message it gives you?
If you can't see messages in general when it boots, try to remove the bootsplash (or just splash) screen.
Discussion
Probably there are several ways to do it with linux mint.
It tells me that it can't boot from hard, so I have to F2 and switch to the stick, or just start with the stick in.
Hard drive seems to be fine, though.
If you can, try Puppy Linux. Best distribution imho to run from USB. Resurrects every older machine.
Sounds like when you installed it, you didn't set a mount point as it should. I'll take a further look though, maybe I'll find something.
Ok, look here the option 3
https://www.fosslinux.com/105028/the-comprehensive-guide-to-fixing-boot-problems-in-linux-mint.htm
Let me try to boot into recovery mode. Already did the BIOS thing.
I am confident though that grub is not in mbr. Probably you put grub in the linux mint partition...
Didn't have a GRUB menu. Too old.
must be EFI
Old has nothing to do with it. Just try what i told you.
I have tried it. It's still running. 🥴
On which step?
Just finished. Did seem to help, as I've just tested and it's booted twice without the stick.
Jaded, but cautiously hopeful.
Yes it was obvious, to me at least, that grub was not on mbr...
Weirdly, it said that it found no errors, but now it's different.
What is different?
Didn't need the stick to boot. Booted from the HD, twice.
I apparently have a better model than the normal one. 7.7 GB HD and dual-core processor. Probably why it can manage Mint. But some more RAM would be nice.
So it is not different. It's normal 😁.
Btw about geany, if you go to documents > set filetype , you'll find out that you can use it for several languages. So if you want something in python set it for python etc
Oh and if you want to easily see the specs of your computer you can install inxi if not already there and type in terminal, let's say inxi - b . You'll see...
I'm assuming "memory test" is "recovery mode" and clicked on it.