Ubuntu/Kubuntu kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root

[adravas]

Hello everyone, I have recently purchased and installed an SSD drive, 128 gb, into my pc. I will let you know off the bat, I have done virtually nothing with linux, nor do I know much about it, but would like to.

I have not formatted this drive. It is already partitioned with 100 mb dedicated to System and 119 gb dedicated to Primary. I tried installing Windows 7 but I kept getting an Error Code: 0x80075070. Because of this and many failed attempts at fixing my windows install, I wanted to install a Linux Distro. I tried putting Ubuntu 12.10 onto the flash drive with the "Universal USB Installer" but I got a "kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown block(8,1)" error when I tried to install it. The same thing happened with Ubuntu 11.04 and Kubuntu 12.10.

Can somebody tell me how to fix this problem? A lot of the posts I have read say to open the grub and insert some commands, but I don't know how to do that and I can't seem to find any articles that tell me how.

Thank you.

[adravas]

I also tried using unetbootin to install the os's onto the drive.

[devils casper]

Hi and Welcome !

Boot up from LiveCD/USB of Ubuntu, open Terminal and execute this

sudo fdisk -l

Post output here.

* Its small L in fdisk -l.

[adravas]

When I boot up from the USB it shows the splash screen for about 3 seconds, then goes to a black screen that displays the kernel panic error. How do I open the terminal?

[adravas]

I hit tab on the splash screen and was directed to a menu. From here I was able to access some kind of command line. In this line I inputted sudo fdisk -l. This made the screen go back to the error screen. Here is everything that appears on that error screen:

md: autorun
md:...autorun DONE.
VFS: Cannot open root device "null" or unknown-block(0,0): error -6
Please append a correct "root=" boot option; here are the available partitions:
125034840 sda driver: sd
102400 sda1 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
124930048 sda2 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
1048575 sr0 driver: sr
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount to root fs on unknown-block(0,0)
Pid: 1, comm: swapper/0 Not tainted 3.5.0-17-generic #28-Ubuntu
panic+0x81/0x17b
mount_block_root_+0x1aa/0x23d
? sys_mknod+0x2d/0x30
mount_root+0x5e/0x64
prepare_namespace+0x14e/0x192
? sys_access+0x25/0x30
kernel_init+ox1b1/0x1b6
? loglevel+0x2b/0x2b
? start_kernel+0x363/0x363
kernel_thread_helper+0x6/0x10

and below that last line is a blinking cursor. Anything I type or press on the keyboard does nothing at this point.

[devils casper]

Post you machine's specs here.

Have you tried to create LiveCD USB again? Have you verified downloaded .iso image?