Black Screen Please Help

[Christin]

Hello i am now getting a black screen after the grub menu since i installed the linux mint updates. I run a dual boot system on two separate hard drives. My first boot prority is Win 7 when i boot the Linux Mint drive i get grub menu then a black screen with nothing. I run two nvidia Geforce 7300 gt video cards. i think my video card drivers are the problem or one of the updates did something. It ran flawlessly before the updates. Is there any way to fix this without doing a reinstall? I've tried several things that people have posted on this forum with no luck yet. I am a newbie with little knowledge on linux. I really liked linux mint 11 and was trying out linux mint 13 cinnamon 64-bit version. I really liked it also before the updates. I would like to get the desktop back so i can "install additional drivers". Any suggestions are really appreciated.

[bigj231]

Could you post the output of

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lspci

and

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uname -a

You will most likely have to boot into the command line to do that. just add "text" to the end of your GRUB line, or try booting into recovery mode.
You could try booting the old kernel if you upgraded that. If you installed the proprietary graphics drivers, then you'll have to use the command line to try to uninstall them.
If there's nothing important on the system, reinstalling is generally easiest.

[Christin]

I thought if i could install the proprietary drivers would fix the problem in general. If i decide to reinstall linux how do i prevent this from happening again. Do i have to install the updates individually because there are like 450 updates that would be very time consuming. i believe when i originally installed linux 11 i had to install the proprietary drivers for nvidia or the same problem would occur

[Christin]

Are those commands that you want me to enter. If i boot in recovery mode i can access shell root is that what you want me to do and enter those commands.

[Christin]

when i enter uname -a i get :linux chris-xfx-nforce-680i-LT 3.2.0-23-generic # 36-Ubuntu SMP Tue Apr 10 20:39.51 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

and when i enter lspci i get a very long list that ends with: VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation G73 (Geforce 7300 GT)

[bigj231]

Sorry I haven't responded until now. I forgot to subscribe to the topic. I'll do that right now.
Okay, since you can still use your system, and you want to install the proprietary drivers, you can download the drivers directly from nVidia to a USB drive or CD and install them manually. Just mount the drive from the command line using something like:

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sudo mount /dev/sdX# /media

Replace sdX# with the location of the partition on our USB drive. It will often be /dev/sdb1 or /dev/sdc1.
Then just proceed with the installation following nVidia's instructions.
Something else to look for when you boot into recovery mode is try the "startx" command and see what errors it gives you. That might provide some useful information.

If you remember what updates you installed, you should be able to roll them back with dpkg or something else.

If you want to reinstall, I would recommend installing updates in small batches that way you can narrow down the problem updates. Don't use apt-get or aptitude or synaptic to update your system until you get everything working. Use mintupdate instead. Also, hold off on the level 3 or higher updates until you make sure everything works. then start installing the other updates. Start with the level 3, then move on to 4 and 5 if so desired. The level 4 and 5 updates can and do break things. When you have everything up to date, or have found the problem update, then you can install your graphics drivers. Sometimes other updates will break them as you found out.