Kernel not syncing: attempted to kill init!

[jcarroca]

Hi,
I installed 8.04 via a downloaded iso on an extra 100g SATA hard drive. The system has also 2 other hard drives that are setup to run Windows XP. Ubuntu installed fine the 1st time but was unstable so I tried to reinstall using the bootable disk. Thats when I got the "Kernel not syncing:attempted to kill init" error. I have tried to load with safe graphics, and many boot parameters such as noapic nolapic, acpi=off, irqpoll, lapic pci=routeirq nothing seems to work. I am able to boot to the ubuntu screen but can not go much farther. This is my second CD that was downloaded and burned so I don't think it is the CD. I have sent for an official CD from Ubuntu to check that. Any ideas on what might be the problem. Windows XP works fine on all hard drives so I know its not a hardware issue.

[Pumalite]

Burn a new CD. Do md5sum, burn at 4x or less.

[jcarroca]

I used digestIt to verify the hash. the hash number from the forum http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-765178.html, 8895167a794c5d8dedcc312fc62f1f1f matches my downloaded iso perfectly.

[Pumalite]

Did you burn at 4x or less?. Did you check CD integrity before install?
Clean the lens in your burner, just in case.

[jcarroca]

The disc was burned at 4X so that was not the issue. However, I did find out the problem. It was somewhere in my bios. Don't know where, but I put my setting to the default (not optimized) setting and now it installed fine. Thanks for all your help. I am sick of the many crashes associated with Windows and am eager to find a more stable environment. I just need to convince the wife and kids of this. :)