Check other drives and system logs first. If still unresolved, try formatting the boot drive or consulting a specialist.
Check other drives and system logs first. If still unresolved, try formatting the boot drive or consulting a specialist.
Quick update for you - fresh install of Mint on the new drive. Tried doing a Timeshift restore but it stomped on the new disk boot/grub stuff. I went back and redid the fresh install and manually restored /home, plus selected updates to root (stuff like cron jobs, fstab mounts for other drives, etc) and I'm 99% whole. Thanks for the help though.
It's good to hear the fix worked, though I'm still puzzled about what led to the problem. It seems like the board might have some strange issues. If I were you, I'd just label this board as 'don't touch' and switch to another system. The Dell I mentioned? I sent it to my dad with Xubuntu installed and just told him to go for it.
It's time to upgrade to a more modern setup—something with an i5 or i7 processor, a newer ASUS board such as Z390, and DDR4 RAM. Right now it feels a bit cramped, so we're hoping to squeeze in a few more months before making the change.
It seems the partitions may not be aligned correctly or there might be a faulty Legacy Grub setup. Certain distributions include both Legacy and EFI options as backup. If this is the first boot device, some hardware will stop working if it can't locate what it expects at that spot. You can check for a Legacy Grub problem by disabling Legacy Support on your board.