Can't boot notebook from SSD

[MR ZenWiz]

On Sat, May 20, 2017 at 1:13 PM, Little Girl <littlergirl at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey there,
>
> MR ZenWiz wrote:
>
>> Apparently the initramfs image does not recognize the SSD as a boot
>> drive and refuses to load anything.
>>
>> If there's a solution, someone please let me know.  I'm going back
>> to the hard drive for now.
>
> We ran into an issue where a new SSD drive wasn't recognized and
> solved it by using Kubuntu's partition manager to partition the
> drive. We had already used Ubuntu's partition manager and the GParted
> Live CD. Neither threw an error, but Ubuntu wouldn't recognize the
> drive. For reasons unknown, the Kubuntu partitioner was able to do
> what the others weren't. It behaved no differently from the others,
> but unlike them, it somehow made it so that Ubuntu recognized the
> drive and was able to be installed. It might be worth a try.
>
I am unfamiliar with Kubuntu, so please post steps I can follow to use
this (including what flags it set on the partition and how I would
then install a different Ubuntu (Xubuntu) on that same drive).

I have posted this question on AskUbuntu:
Xubuntu 16.04.2 absolutely refuses to boot from my notebook SSD
https://askubuntu.com/q/917214/485236?sem=2

I feel like I wasted $88 at this point.

Thanks.