Kernel panic on boot up with 13.10 live-USB

Question

I am a new user for Ubuntu. I downloaded 13.10 yesterday and made a bootable USB with universal USB installer on my Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 laptop which is now using UEFI; everything appeared OK.

When I booted from the LiveUSB I got the choices of trying or installing Ubuntu but both of them keep giving me these error:

[ 1.929082] kernel panic-not syncing vfs unable to mount root fs on
unknown-block (0.0)

Please tell me what is going wrong?

Solution

Perhaps the USB may not have created the filesystem properly, so I would reformat the USB Flash Drive (as FAT32, the most common format for bootable USB FlashDrives) then reinstall the LiveUSB with Universal USB Installer again.

When the PC reboots, disable the UEFI function in your BIOS. I believe the BIOS listing should be UEFI/Legacy Boot and changing that to Legacy Only will solve the other possible source of your problem.

It's also a general good idea to specify which version (e.g., Ubuntu with Unity, Ubuntu GNOME, Kubuntu, Xubuntu or Lubuntu) of Ubuntu you are trying to install.

Comments

[Admin]

Welcome to Askubuntu! Can you add the name of the computer you're using to the question?

[Admin]

@Aaron - depends what you mean by name - I think you mean the computer's make and model?

[Admin]

Lenovo Z580

[Admin]

@Aaron yes I wrote it just now

[Admin]

@wilf: Sorry, I should have been clearer :). That's what I meant.

[Admin]

Possible duplicate: kernel panic not syncing vfs unable to mount root fs on unknown block oo swapper not tainted

[Admin]

Asus vivobook S200E. same thing. Tried to dd if=ubuntu13.10.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M... tried to unetbootin after creating a fat32 partition on the usb drive... all boot me to the UEFI boot, i can see grub(?) and then i get this message. removing quiet splash to nosplash (really idiotic to have quiet on the install boot) i can see a LZM error so it is probably a bad download/USB memory?

[Admin]

1st step, check the hash: help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuHashes then try another usb device/port.

[Muhammad Emad]

computer(Lenovo Z580) is using UEFI, version is 13.10, please tell me why FAT32 formatting?? Thanks.

[RPiAwesomeness]

@MuhammadEmad Fat32 is a universally recognized filesystem, and most systems can read, even old ones, so you don't have to worry about your computer's ability to read it.