Installation fails with kernel panic

[westdev]

I am trying to install a copy of AsteriskNow on a newly-purchased Fit-PC2 bought with the explicit purpose of using it as PBX system for our new office using Asterisk+Freepbx but it is failing before it even gets to start installing. Here are the details:

1) Downloaded AsteriskNow ISO and burned to CD.
2) New LiteOn USB DVD-ROM drive plugged into Fit-PC2.
3) Turned on Fit-PC2.
4) DVD drive is recognised ok, as it offers AsteriskNow boot/install menu.
5) Selected option to install Asterisk 1.6 and Freepbx
6) Starts going through Linux startup but then fails with error:

......
RAMDISK: compressed image found at block 0
input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard as /class/input/input0
invalid compressed format (err=1)
VFS: cannot open root device "<NULL>" or unknown-block(8,3)
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(8,3)

My Fit-PC2 has an 8Gb solid state hard drive, I'm wondering if this is the cause of the fault and something in the installer config needs adjusting to take this into account. Or it has been suggested that as this DVD drive is not mains powered this might cause read errors, but the error message is so consistent that I feel instead this is a hardware/driver/interface config issue.