I’m pretty new as well. Try looking at mounting your hard drives with /etc/fstab. You should try to mount them via UUID and put them in the /mnt folder. I’m using mint cinnamon your mileage might vary. https://wiki.debian.org/fstab

As for the integrated graphics, you might be able to disable them in BIOS.

As for the video drivers I had a lot of trouble as well and ended up having to uninstall a lot of drivers manually to get the right version to stick.

Cinnamon

Just setup Mint last night and have been troubleshooting how to get everything to work. So far I’m liking it. Last thing I setup was Lutris for gaming so that’s nice.