Lite USB locks laptop

[cgs]

I've downloaded Lite 4 twice and burned it several times to different USBs, but when I try to boot on my HP Elitebook 8350p it locks the system w/o any ability to address boot options, and the computer must be rebooted to load the installed OS.
The burn was by the Mint ISO stick burner and then by Unetbootin, and I tried under both Mint 18.3 and MX17. Both USBs were formatted before burning and the burn(s) were tried on both my desktop and again on that laptop: the desktop did not lockup but that is not where I want to install.

[NN]

The burn was by the Mint ISO stick burner and then by Unetbootin, and I tried under both Mint 18.3 and MX17.

Use usb-creator-gtk instead. It's the greatest app ever for writing ISOs onto USBs. Only this app helped me. Etcher, mintstick and unetbootin did not cope with the task.

Both USBs were formatted before burning and the burn(s) were tried on both my desktop and again on that laptop: the desktop did not lockup but that is not where I want to install.

Don't format the USB (I also did so, but this did not lead to success in writing the image properly). The usb-creator-gtk app formates the USB and writes new image simultaneously and does that correctly.

NB: try to install the distro from the very first time, because then something happens with the USB (maybe something is being written to it during the installation) and it stops loading the distro for the second time, although the USB-stick remains usable for later work. You'll have to rewrite the live-image once again in order to boot from the USB-stick for the second time.

[cgs]

Thank you for the good advice, which I followed, but the USB still locks the laptop at the opening screen and will not proceed until the stick is removed and the installed OS restarted.
I will now stop trying.......until there is an answer. I am an old man trying to install a new and challenging system. Someday.

[NN]

I am an old man trying to install a new and challenging system. Someday.

Installing 'a new and challenging system' shouldn't be so difficult, in my humble opinion. And that is not your fault. Newer doesn't always mean better, 'cos newer versions are always raw, buggy and unfinished. So you should forget about it for some time until the devs fix the issues. Version 3.8 is quite good and stable, so use this very version meanwhile. I found nothing special about 4.0 - it's almost the same, to my mind, and I find 3.8 even better. So, "don't worry, be happy!"