So I have an old, broken, Windows XP laptop, and I stuck my Ubuntu flash drive into it and it booted up perfectly when choosing "Boot from USB device" in the boot menu. But the problem is, when I turn off the computer completely, (not just sleep mode or hibernate) EVERYTHING resets! Like my desktop goes back to normal, all my installed programs go away, everything is just set back to default! Do you know why this is happening? As of now, I can't install Ubuntu on the old pre-installed Hard Drive (which still works fine, and I would like to)because I have all my old files still on it. What can I do to keep all of my data when I turn off my computer without installing Ubuntu on my Hard Drive? I don't have a problem using the free space on my old Hard Drive to store everything either, I just can't wipe it and install a whole new OS on it. Thanks.

(If you are wondering what is wrong with my laptop (Windows side) is it blue screens every single time about 5 minutes after booting it up, unless I'm in safe mode, where I can't do any of the features I need to do).