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Laptop Help please

Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 4:27 pm
by berty642
Hi all and thanks for looking.
I have been using mint kde on my desktop now for a few months and really enjoying it, so i decided to install it on my sons laptop which had vista installed.
The laptop is a MEDION MIM2310 with a 1.8 celeron 1 gig of ram and a 120 gig HDD, the initial install went well and i performed the updates after that whenever i boot i get the splash screen and the progress bar it go's to 100% then the screen go's blank i can hear the start up music. I tried reinstalling mint but i get the same problem, blank screen. Can anyone please advise on how to fix this problem?
Thanks in advance

Re: Laptop Help please

Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 8:26 am
by Boo
did you apply the level 4 and 5 updates?
did you just use mintUpdate or command line to update?

kernel and video driver update can be very dangerous.

when live it could be using a safer video driver but once installed it pick a better one but it could be broken.
you could manually set the video driver in xorg.conf to vesa.

Boo

Re: Laptop Help please

Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 3:23 pm
by berty642
Tried what you suggested but still having no luck, so i totally reformatted the hdd and tried a reinstall. The problem is still there, whenever it gets so far on the live cd the screen go's blank, have i broke it lol

Re: Laptop Help please

Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2008 11:37 pm
by Boo
try burning the DVD again, maybe it has gone mad.
it worked the first time so it should be good if you install fresh again.

Boo

Re: Laptop Help please

Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 3:34 pm
by berty642
Hi
I tried what you suggested i burnt the iso in windows and linux i tried ubuntu hardy and ubuntu ibex and mint 6 all with the same result, i then tried xp pro and it loaded without a problem :( which is a shame im going to have to go with windows. Dont know what else to try im out of ideas

Re: Laptop Help please

Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 4:48 pm
by AK Dave
What software did you use to burn the disc image?
Did you burn the disc image at the slowest possible speed?

Re: Laptop Help please

Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2008 5:43 pm
by berty642
Hi
i used nero k3b and imgburn all at the slowest speeds and on verbatim discs, the 8.10 version is a pressed copy so it should have been ok

Re: Laptop Help please

Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2008 12:06 am
by AK Dave
berty642 wrote:Hi
i used nero k3b and imgburn all at the slowest speeds and on verbatim discs, the 8.10 version is a pressed copy so it should have been ok
Agreed. The 8.10 disc from Canonical should have been perfect, and I have no problems with k3b at slow speed. Even with cheapo discs.

Re: Laptop Help please

Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2008 9:20 pm
by Boo
I have seen a post like this before.
once you have xp back on you could try using mint again.
maybe setup a dual boot system at first.
was your xp a vanilla one or some sort of vendor or recovery one?
there could have been some sort of special hardware and driver thing going on.
Compaq were notorious for doing this.

Boo

Re: Laptop Help please

Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2008 1:07 pm
by berty642
Thankyou for all the help guys, the xp is a genuine version that came with an old comp of mine, i think the dual boot option is best i'll give it a try over the holidays and report back how i get on.
Thanx again for the great distro and merry xmas to all :)