[Nottingham] Ubuntu not booting.

[TJ]

On Fri, 2010-05-21 at 17:51 +0100, Benjamin Crowe wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I have just recently tried to install Ubuntu on my desktop I have
> tried both 10.04 and 9.04 but they both will not boot past a screen
> with a flashing cursor after what is supposedly a sucsseful install.
> My desktop specs are thus intel quad core, 4Gb memory, 250Gb HDD(which
> I install Ubuntu on) and a seperate 500Gb HDD for documents.

It could be an issue whereby GRUB is installed to one hard disk, but is
trying to boot another. There are some issues around multi-disk
scenarios that can cause this.

It'd be helpful if you could try accessing the GRUB menu at boot-time,
as soon as the BIOS has POSTed. Hold down the shift key and GRUB
should/will show the boot menu.

Choose the 'Recovery' variation of the most recent (highest versioned)
kernel. That will start in single-user mode and should not put up the
plymouth spash screen - you should see kernel messages as the system
boots.

If you don't see those, then I'd point at a GRUB issue. If you do, then
there is start-up issue that needs more investigation.

What graphics chip-set is installed? There are some issues with the
kernel mode-setting and DRM drivers.

When you see the flashing cursor, you could try switching VT. Press
Ctrl_Alt+F1 to get to tty1. If you see a log-in prompt, then that gives
us a further clue.

I'm an Ubuntu developer; if I can help you, email me.

TJ.