I am trying to install Ubuntu 13.10 on my Macbook Air. I've previously had no issue installing from a USB stick to this machine. However, I don't currently have access to a USB stick or any external media at all!

What I've done so far is partitioned my SSD into 3 partitions. One holds OS X, another is a 5gb partition intended for the install ISO, and a third is intended to be the target for that install. The second two partitions are formatted as FAT.

I've used dd (with and without bs=1m) to "burn" my ISO to the small 5gb FAT partition. I also at one point tried using hdituil to convert my ISO file to IMG and went through the same process with same result below.

After "burning" my ISO to the small partition, I reboot into Refind. Refind sees my small 5gb partition perfectly well, and when I select that partition it loads GRUB appropriately.

However, from here, regardless of what I choose, Ubuntu will start to load and then after a few minutes crash out to:

BuzyBox V1.15.3 (Ubuntu 1:1.15.3-1ubuntu5) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built in commands.

(initramfs) unable to find a medium containing a live file system.

I've Googled this error and found a number of people encountering it when trying to install from USB, but no solutions seem applicable to my case (installing from a partition on my SSD, to another partition on my SSD).

Is there any solution to this, or do I just need to wait a few days until I have access to a USB stick?

Many thanks in advance, and apologies for length -- I figured I'd err on the side of being exhaustive rather than having people suggest things I've already tried.