initramfs unable to find a medium

Hello, I am trying to boot Freya live USB on my Skylake / Z170 PC but it gets stuck at "initramfs unable to find a medium". I have tried everything possible and I get the same error every time.

I created the USB stick by using Rufus and then booting the USB in UEFI mode, I also tried to boot it in legacy mode.

I tried to write ISO to USB by using DD and booting it in legacy mode.

I looked in Ubuntu forums for solutions but none of the solutions posted works for me.

In UEFI mode I see this:



In legacy mode I see some USB related messages. Does this have something to do with the fact that Intel removed eHCI in Z170 chipset?





I tried to boot Ubuntu, Debian, Manjaro, OpenSUSE and they all booted, it's only Elementary that fails. Ubuntu LTS which Elementary is based on boots without issues.

The weirdest thing is that I managed to boot into Freya one time yesterday by writing the ISO to USB with usbwriter in Windows and then booting it in legacy mode, but today when I tried the same thing several times, it does not work.

So what could be the issue?

CPU: Intel i7-6700K
MOBO: Asus MAXIMUS VIII HERO
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB DDR4-3000
SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 250GB
GPU: Sapphire Radeon R9 390 8GB Nitro

CPU: Intel i7-6700K | Cooler: CM Hyper 212 EVO | MOBO: Asus MAXIMUS VIII HERO | Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB DDR4-3000 | SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 250GB | HDD: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM | GPU: Sapphire Radeon R9 390 8GB Nitro | Case: Fractal Design Define S | PSU: EVGA SUPERNOVA G2 750W | Monitor: BenQ BL3201PT

 

Very detailed analysis. Like it. Ubuntu updated their Installer for LTS 14.04.03, does this issue exist with installer 14.04.0 ? http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/releases/14.04.0/

 

I tried 14.04.0 now and it booted fine. So really have no idea what's going on with Elementary.

Actually, I was not able to test all solutions posted on Ubuntu forums since one of them was to boot from USB 2.0 ports which is not possible on Skylake, and to boot with CD and I have no optical drive for that.

 

Hello Demond,
Freya 0.3.1 is out (just some minutes ago) News: http://blog.elementary.io/post/128271333121/freya-031-is-here
You should try the new installer: https://elementary.io/ > Download > 0.3.1*.iso

Is it better now?

 

I solved issue, I poked around in BIOS and found a USB emulation option, I set it to CD ROM and Freya booted fine.
The old Freya, have not yet tried he new Freya. I booted it in UEFI mode.


Weird, the issue seems USB related since EOS booted fine when it thinks that it is booting from a CD ROM instead of USB.
Will try the new Freya, maybe it can boot without emulation.

Edit: Tried new Freya and it boots fine with no emulation in BIOS

 

Cool, nice! Thanks for this feedback.