Yesterday, 09:24 PM
Figured it out... While I tried other USB ports on the device I didn't try *all* of the other USB ports because my mouse and keyboard were populating both of the USB2 ports.
The issue is/was that the USB3x ports aren't supported by the installers I was trying. So the machine would boot off USB3x but once it tried to do the OS handover there were no drivers and that's why the installers couldn't find the "root" device.
TL;DR - use one of the USB2 ports for the USB key and all is well.
The issue is/was that the USB3x ports aren't supported by the installers I was trying. So the machine would boot off USB3x but once it tried to do the OS handover there were no drivers and that's why the installers couldn't find the "root" device.
TL;DR - use one of the USB2 ports for the USB key and all is well.