elementary OS 0.3.2 won't boot (No volume groups found)

Question

After installing via USB stick with everything default but using encrypted disk I rebooted, and the following happens:

1. Dell logo shows up, as usual
2. GRUB screen
3. elementary OS logo stuck for several minutes.
4. If I press ESC the logo goes away and it says "No volume groups found". Pressing ESC again makes the logo appear
5. BusyBox comes up and I don't know what to do with it

I've tried installing with and without updates.

Previously I was using Xubuntu 15.10 with the same install settings without a problem.

The hardware is a Dell Inspiron I13-7348-C40 laptop.

Update 1:

I installed without encryption and the problem continues. Below are the error messages I receive in each situation:

Encrypted install, after waiting for the elementary OS logo disappear:

Begin: Mounting root file system ... Begin: Running /scripts/local-top(didn't get the whole line in the picture)
  Reading all physical volumes. This may take a while...
  No volume groups found
  No volume groups found
Begin: Waiting for encrypted source device... ...

Then the BusyBox/initramfs appears. I type exit and get:

    Check cryptopts=source= bootarg: cat /proc/cmdline
    or missing modules, devices: cat /proc/modules; ls /dev
-r ALERT! /dev/disk/by-uuid/d1d....... does not exist. Dropping to a shell!
BusyBox v1.21.1 (Ubuntu 1:1.21.0-1ubuntu1) [... and so on]

After I installed without cryptography I get this before BusyBox:

Gave up waiting for root device. Common problems:
 - Boot args (cat /proc/cmdline)
   - Check rootdelay= (did the system wait long enough?)
   - Check root= (did the system wait for the right device?)
 - Missing modules (cat /proc/modules; ls /dev)
ALERT!  /dev/disk/by-uuid/74bc... does not exist. Dropping to a shell!


BusyBox v1.21.1 (Ubuntu 1:1.21.0-1ubuntu1) [... and so on]

Update 2

I was able to boot elementary OS using SystemRescueCd and choosing the option to boot the existing OS so it seems elementary OS is doing something weird in the boot config.

Answer 1

tl;dr: try creating your USB stick image again

Turns out this might have been a problem with the USB stick image.

I followed the instructions from elementary's page on how to prepare the stick on Ubuntu (yes, I checked the hash) and it looked ok but had this problem after installing the OS.

Today, hopeless, I decided to create the USB drive again using Mac OS X, following the corresponding instructions and using the same USB stick. For my surprise it worked this time. So the problem was probably with the old image.

Answer 2

I have found that when busybox isn't installed I can boot but can't when it is After fresh install enter

dpkg -L busybox

into terminal and see if it's there. On my 2nd HDD Loki install, which boots just fine, it isn't there:

~$ dpkg -L busybox dpkg-query: package 'busybox' is not installed

Use dpkg --info (= dpkg-deb --info) to examine archive files, and dpkg --contents (= dpkg-deb --contents) to list their contents.

~$ dpkg --info busybox dpkg-deb: error: failed to read archive 'busybox': No such file or directory

~$ dpkg --contents busybox dpkg-deb: error: failed to read archive 'busybox': No such file or directory