black screen on startup

[timtjtjb]

hello, i wonder if anyone can help me, ive got a dell c400, i had xp on and wanted to try linux, i installed debian on line, and trusting to new technology i used the whole of the hard drive to install it, thus deleting xp,now when i boot up all i get is a black screen, ive tried looking online but the things people are saying to do are well over my head, i managed the e to get into the gnu grub thing, but from then on im lost, ive tried to put xp back on with my external dvd reader but still nothing but blackness!! so if anyone could give me a fools guide of what to do it would be muchly appreciated. thanks

[jp734]

If you have another computer that has access to the Internet, I'd recommend downloading a LIVE ISO and burn. It's the safest way to go and just try re-installing the OS.

[timtjtjb]

thank you, but on the c400 it doesn't give you the option to boot from usb, ive got the prog on dvd, plug my external cd/dvd in and nothing happens!, i do have acces to another pc though and im just trawling through sites to see if i can get an answer

[timtjtjb]

i downloaded the live version, put it onto disk and flash drive, unticked the hd boot and ticked the rest, still no joy, thanks for your help

[HughT]

Hi timtjtjb,
chances are that you have a fully operational debian operating system on your hard drive, but you just can't boot to it. The grub rescue prompt does allow commands to get you working again. But to diagnose your problem, you'll need to be more specific about the "gnu grub thing". What did you see? grub > or grub rescue > ? You can try using the list command after the prompt, just type the letters ls (ie lower case L and S). It'll probably reply with hd0. Try ls (hd0,1)/boot and ls (hd0,1)/boot/grub. This should give information about the boot and grub files, including the kernel. Post the results back here because we can't give specific commands without knowing exactly the details of your installation.
regards

[timtjtjb]

hi hugh t
thanks for your help, when i press start, i get along the top GNU GRUB version 1.98+20100804-14+squeeze 1
then in the box underneath it says Debian
GNU/Linux, with linux 2.6.32-5-686
GNU/linux, with linux 2.6.32-5-686 (rocovery mode)

then i pressed e to edit the commands, again along the top is GNU GRUB version 1.98+20100804-14+squeeze 1
in the box is

insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,msdos1)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 1c10c02e-823e-4c06-ad5d-650f45a9b\
8ec
echo 'Loading Linux 2.6.32-5-686 ...'
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-5-686 root=UUID=1c10c02e-823e-4c06-ad5d-6\
50f45a9b8ec ro quiet
echo 'loading initial ramdisk ...'
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-50686

under the box it says
Minimum Emacs-like screen editing is supported. TAB lists
completions. Press Ctrl-x to boot, Ctrl-c for a
command-line or ESC to discard edits and return to the
GRUB menu

i returned to the grub menu and pressed enter on the line that says GNU/Linux, with linux 2.6.32-5-686
it then says loading please wait, then a few lines that go too fast, then the screen just goes grey and then black then back to grey!!

hope this helps and thanks you for your help. tim

[HughT]

Okay, so try the 'recovery mode' and from the recovery mode prompt, choose 'failsafeX' option. If this gets you to a desktop, then perhaps there's a graphics problem during the boot sequence. This can be corrected by opening a terminal (a shortcut is ctrl+alt+t) and

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sudo gedit /etc/default/grub

Gedit will open up. Copy paste the following text to the bottom of the file.

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GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=text

Save and exit.
Finally, do the following to update GRUB.

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sudo update-grub

Done. Now restart and it should work OK now.
Hope this helps, if not post back with your observations.
regards

[timtjtjb]

when i press the start key, it gives me the boot options, when i select the recovery mode and press enter it goes straight into boot mode, ive tried doing the ctl+alt+t during the boot sequence and nothing happens!

[BigSteve_G]

Hi,

Are you refering to the boot screen being blank?
If so it is something introduced from Mint 11(I think it was) onwards - I've found a way around it if you need it - or check around this site

[timtjtjb]

well when i press enter to start bootup, i get a few lines of writing come up, then it goes black. any help would be appreciated, ive got a laptop at the minute i cant do anything with

[BigSteve_G]

ive got a laptop at the minute i cant do anything with

When the screen goes blank is there no HDD light activity - when I 1st installed mint 12 & rebooted I thought something was wrong untill I noticed the hdd light flickering - after awhile I got the logon screen.

I'm on a xp machine at the moment (& cant fully remember) but when I get the chance I will let you know how I changed the blank startup screen on my system (not that pretty just scrolling text but at least it shows things are working)

[timtjtjb]

thank you, yes the hdd light does flash and flicker, i thing it is running just that the screen goes blank, and being a c400 i dont get any options to boot from usb which is the only way available to me!

[BigSteve_G]

Just re-read you post

Just to check, after a while do you get the logon screen?

[timtjtjb]

no, nothing except blackness

[HughT]

Hi timtjtjb,
I've just looked at my grub.cfg file, and it's very nearly the same as yours, but there's a small difference. I don't know if it's significant, yours says set root='(hd0,msdos1)', while mine says set root='(/dev/sda,msdos1)'. sda and hd0 are the same thing, a reference to your hard drive, so not important (I think). But what could be significant is the lack of /dev/. The root is on a device (ie your hard drive) so the full address of that device is /dev/hd0,msdos1.
Can you try editing that line and see if that works. I'm not sure if the edit is persistent, so you may need to do some more editing once you have an operating system. sudo update-grub might do it.
let us know how you get on, regards

[timtjtjb]

Thanks, I'll try that in morning when I get home from work

[jp734]

I did some research about C400 specifications and I saw that it has intel 845 graphics card.

I had the same issue before when I tried using the intel driver on my 915GM graphics adapter until I added "i915.modeset=1" on my grub.cfg. There is a bug with intel graphics on kernels 2.6.37... and later. Currently, I am using Mint 12 which has 3.0 kernel and I still have the option on my grub.cfg but it fixed my problem. Hope this helps you. I had to use vesa as my driver if I don't edit my grub.

Good luck!

[timtjtjb]

Hi hught, I changed that thing, still black screen, but the hard drive light does seem to flicker a lot more!
Hi jp, where exactly do I put that command in? Does it go in the place where you press e in the boot options? Sorry you all for being so clueless!!

[HughT]

Oh dear, still in the dark! I think BigSteve G and jp734 have the same idea - it's a graphics problem. If so, would they agree that Debian is running but you just can't see it? If this is the case, then give your pc a chance to boot, and when the flickering has stopped, try to open the tty7 terminal using ctrl+alt+F7. This is where the X display server runs - so all the graphics depend on it. If tty7 opens, you should see a command prompt, then try typing startx and enter. Hope that works. If not, and you need to shut down from tty7, use the command

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shutdown -h now

fingers crossed!

[jp734]

Yes. It will look something like this

linux/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-21-generic root=UUID=49c7bcf7-0f8d-460c-aa83-0798872396e6 ro splash vga=795 quiet splash

and add the i915.modeset=1 somewhere