I am trying to install Xubuntu 12.04 x64 on a new SSD (Samsung 840 EVO) with a USB flash drive. My CPU is an AMD Athlon II.

I will set the BIOS to start from each of the various USB options (FDD, ZIP, CDROM, HDD), none of them work. I have tried both setting the boot order in BIOS and going through the boot menu itself. Each time the computer recognizes the USB flash drive by the appropriate name on the top of the screen, then there is a table with the first column being Bus, and then "Verifying DMI Pool Data....." then "Boot error". When I first started, it was saying "Boot from CDROM/DVD:" and then "Boot error".

I have checked the .iso with md5sum, and I have installed it with both Startup Disk Creator and UNetBootin on two different USB flash drives. "Boot error".

I've been searching online and the only thing that seems to be addressing my problem is post #6 here, but unfortunately my BIOS options don't have anything resembling this, and I don't know enough to figure out what the analog to 'USB Mass Storage Emulation type' would be in my BIOS.

I feel like I've ran into this issue before with this machine during reformats, but I unfortunately don't recall how I fixed it.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

I think I may have just fixed the problem; at the least, I'm in the install for Xubuntu.

To do this, I reformatted one of my USBs to Ext4 with Lubuntu's Disk Utility (on my laptop), and then formatted the 'partition' (not sure what partition, shouldn't be partitioned) to Linux (0x83) (this was an arbitrary choice, just wanted to change it from FAT32). I then inserted the USB into the comp I want to install Xubuntu on and went to the BIOS setup. I went to Hard Disk Priority (not boot priority) and saw it was now recognizing the USB. Last night, Hard Disk Priority only recognized the SSD. I then set the boot priority to Hard Disk. Now I'm on the install page for Xubuntu.