vesa only, i'm lost :(

[beachgardener]

i had to do a repair install, now mint 14.1 cinnamon only has vesa driver, screen resolution is too low, and doesn't recognise second monitor, help to sort out graphics driver and screen resolution needed please. Thank you.
i have looked at many types of solution, but going around in circles.
the thing is on the original install miunt recognised monitors with nouveau drivers, why not this time?

graphics card is gts250 nvidia, nouveau driver seems to be installed according to synaptic manager, how to configure ?

there seems to be many ways using xorg.conf but on mint?

[jungle_boy]

Do you have /home in another partition?

[beachgardener]

yes home in another partition, partitions are /boot, swap, /, /home, dual boot with win7 screens are 2 x 24" led benq's 1920 x 1080, i had been formatting / only with the repair install, trying to set up afresh to eliminate problems with buggy package installer, it not installing stuff properly and other errors surrounding mint update.
i can only think that something in the home partition over rules the install, would that be right? (repair install)
from live dvd session nadia sees both monitors and mirrors them in correct resolutions, after install, it goes haywire, but, after much hair pulling last night i backed up all data, wiped it and re-did the whole install afresh, and encountered the same screen resolution problem, it seems that it installs vesa as default, why? (why vesa with GTS 250 and 2 x 24" screens pentium G850 and Asus P8H77-M LE with 8gb ram, modern enough?), and then i can't find clear instruction on how to change to nouveau or indeed nvidia drivers (there is a myriad of stuff out there for xorg.conf, which to me seems a better way of being able to fix things, but no nadia doesn't do it that way), i did try installing nvidia drivers, but couldn't configure it to correct screen resolution, it gave me instructions to use terminal, then that didn't work. ended up with 640x480, this whole mess shows me how difficult it still is to work with linux, i enjoy using linux, but if it has a problem?...
it also seems that in all settings>display that is a bit week, it often doesn't do anything as such to help or just doesn't do anything, it could give the user a clear idea of what is happening and a solution and actually try to remedy the situation.
anyway i have deleted the partitions and formatted ntfs for now, there is an update for ubuntu (12.04.2) out soon, might have a go at that, seems that might be less hassle as i have it on another machine without problem.
But, if you have a solution, i'd be willing to install nadia again to see if it will co-operate, thank you.

[jungle_boy]

/home partition have hidden files, where are the settings of installations, this settings preserve (good and bad) configurations of your installed drivers/programs; it is necessary delete all hidden files before to procedure a new LM install.

If you can, back up your documents at /home and then install again, formatting /home.

[beachgardener]

yes, thank you jungle_boy, appreciate your help, i have mint 14.1 back up and running properly again (with /boot, swap, /, /home), seems that with a repair install the rule is to not format / when /home is on another partition.
what are the hidden files that keep the graphics/resolution settings in /home? seems i could learn about that.
happy that i'm minting again

not lost, but, found again

[beachgardener]

problem now is that cinnamon loses its icons on task bar and start menu

[jungle_boy]

Back up your files and proceed a fresh install, formating partitions ( / and /home).

Attention:

Cinnamon is still under development and may present some problems, the best known is disappearing the desktop icons or taskbar.

[beachgardener]

thank you, i did the fresh install, all good, now just the lost icons, was ok until i installed skype 4.1, after that the icons on task bar and start menu went away.

the drivers installed default are the Gallium, i thought they were Nouveau, anyway Gallium it is.

[jungle_boy]

OK.

Good Linux Mint for you!

[beachgardener]

thank you for your help, much appreciated