Tried installing Nadia, now can't boot anything

[PaciFistiCuffs]

This might honestly be as suited to an Asus forum as it is a Linux Mint forum, but a lot of the google searching I've done has redirected me to this forum, so I figure this is the best place for me to ask.

So...

I've got an Asus eee1000 netbook, 32bit. It was running Linux Mint 11, and I wanted to install Linux Mint 14 on it (both MATE). I popped in a USB, took a while to figure out how to boot to the USB (had to disable quiet mode and quick mode in the BIOS, and change some of the priorities), but got it to boot and Nadia seemed to run fine, so I clicked install and told it to replace the current edition of Mint and just clicked next next next. Then... and this may have been the most stupid thing I've done in a while... I looked back at the machine and it seemed to not be doing anything, stuck on some sort of linux mint background, and I probably should have just waited longer (or I don't know, maybe it was already rainbows), but I shut down the netbook, and that's when hell began.

I can't boot off a USB anymore. Whenever I try, even if I can make it to the screen that lets me choose "Start Linux Mint" among other options, clicking it will just make the netbook boot again, in an infinite cycle. I was able to get Boot Repair to boot, however, and I tried running that and let it do its thing, and I don't know if it did anything, but later I tried to run it again and I couldn't. I can boot off the hard drive (after changing the priority from the 8GB to the 32, a trick I found out from googling http://dragonstaff.blogspot.com/2009/01 ... linux.html), and it seems to start mint, but then I get:

"server authorization directory (daemon/servauthdir) is set to /var/lib/mdm but this does not exist. Please correct mdm configuration and restart mdm."

Then it sends me to a command line, but I can't login. I googled this:
http://janvandevoort.wordpress.com/2011 ... upgrade-2/
and found out I have no internet (though I have an ethernet cable plugged in), and I have no idea what I should be looking for in the logs

I can also boot into recovery mode, but I don't know what to do there.

I don't care about any of the information that's on the netbook, I don't care if I need to reinstall everything from the ground up, I just want a working OS!

Please, can anyone get me out of this mess?

[viking777]

My guess - the hard shutdown has damaged the USB key. At the very least you would need to redo the iso installation to the usb key, preferably a different key. If you don't have a different key then you will need to format the existing one. Of course all of that requires you to have access to another computer on which to do it and you don't say if you have one.

It is unsurprising that Mint wont boot if it didn't finish installing, and as for recovery mode do you mean grub recovery mode?

Most laptops/netbooks these days are supplied with a factory reset disk (and/or partition) do you have that option?

[PaciFistiCuffs]

I'm pretty sure the USB's are fine - I've got two, and they've both been re-formatted. I don't know of any factory resets, but I'll try to find one