Guest linuxman Posted October 11, 2004 Report Share Posted October 11, 2004 Hi, I have just installed Mandrake 10.1 community. Before the install, I have a single partition hd of 38G. I have used the tool in the installation program to shrink the windows xp partition, and allocated 4G for the linux. For the rest of the install, i just used the default settings. The weird thing is, installation seemed fine. As soon as it reboots, i see the boot loader. i have selected linux, and then the whole screen went blank. no messages on screen, nothing. The keyboard is still responsive though, as cntl-alt-delete worked, and number locks worked. I have a nvidia tnt2 video card, 1G duron processor, 256M ram, 38G hd, and 2cd roms (one is writer). Is there a way to see some error messages? it is hard to debug what went wrong if i don't see any text. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest linuxman Posted October 11, 2004 Report Share Posted October 11, 2004 I have also tried the other 2 modes in the boot menu, linux-fb and failsafe. I get 1 message on screen, "bios data check successful" and that's it. i have also disabled all onboard devices (sound, lan, usb etc) and unplugged my usb wireless adaptor. still no luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted October 12, 2004 Report Share Posted October 12, 2004 At the boot splash, hit esc, type "linux 3" and enter. See if it loads to a command line. If it does, log in, type "startx" and post the errors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest linuxman Posted October 12, 2004 Report Share Posted October 12, 2004 Thanks for the quick response. the command loads, and i typed linux 3. it said "bios data checked successful" and the screen went blank. So i guess it didn't really do much at this point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted October 12, 2004 Report Share Posted October 12, 2004 Not good. I suspect the worst, which in the linux world means a reinstall. It is possible that the partition table is fudged. Can you boot windows? (Obviously you are posting from something!) If you downloaded the iso's, make sure you do the md5sum to verify their integrity. I think you will have to reinstall. Be sure to format the pertitions again. This time you won't have to make them, just format them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drew Posted October 12, 2004 Report Share Posted October 12, 2004 (edited) I just downloaded 10.1 community last night, finished installing 15-20 minutes ago.. I'm having the same problem with the blank screen. :( edit: and I'm using my entire drive, no partitions. Edited October 12, 2004 by Drew Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drew Posted October 12, 2004 Report Share Posted October 12, 2004 Thanks to the help of mdemers883 I got it fixed. I disabled some Plug-n-Play options in my BIOS as well as some onboard items I dont use.. booted right up, no problems. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sellis Posted October 12, 2004 Report Share Posted October 12, 2004 I'm having a similar problem. Be patient - the blank screen may only be temporary. As far as I can see, on my system, bootsplash (the graphical boot progress indicator) sets the video mode to a mode my monitor can't display. (It *says* it's VGA=791, i.e. 1024x768x16bpp, but the refresh rate is obviously out of kilter somehow.) After the usual boot process presumably happens, the login screen appears and everything is fine from that point on. But, of course, this can mean sitting watching a blank screen for a long time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamw Posted October 12, 2004 Report Share Posted October 12, 2004 sellis: you could always change 791 to something else - try 788 for 800x600 and see if that works, or if it doesn't, just set it to 'none' for text mode boot... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest linuxman Posted October 13, 2004 Report Share Posted October 13, 2004 What kind of plug and play options are you referring to? I tried disable all on board devices (sound, network etc.) but with no luck. Also, for the blank screen, how long is the wait are you talking about? i waited for about 10 mins, but the hd is not moving, and nothing is progressing. I will try to disable all the plug and play stuff to see if that works. thanks. Thanks to the help of mdemers883 I got it fixed. I disabled some Plug-n-Play options in my BIOS as well as some onboard items I dont use.. booted right up, no problems. :) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drew Posted October 13, 2004 Report Share Posted October 13, 2004 (edited) I cant remember what exactly I disabled. what motherboard/bios do you have? my asus (pheonix bios?) doesnt really let you "disable" PnP, but I could disable everything related. I have a whole section in the bios for just PnP. Then also Hardware. I turned off some serial ports I wasnt using, firewire, etc.. that sped up my boot process. It was trying to probe those things at boot for minutes. I think that may have been some of the problem. Edited October 13, 2004 by Drew Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sellis Posted October 13, 2004 Report Share Posted October 13, 2004 sellis: you could always change 791 to something else - try 788 for 800x600 and see if that works, or if it doesn't, just set it to 'none' for text mode boot... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Thanks for that - I'll give it a try when I get a chance. I'm confused that 791 doesn't work, though, since 1024x768x16 is the resolution my desktop is running in. Weird. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sellis Posted October 25, 2004 Report Share Posted October 25, 2004 sellis: you could always change 791 to something else - try 788 for 800x600 and see if that works, or if it doesn't, just set it to 'none' for text mode boot... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well, a lull in the DIY and mad work hours means I got the chance to try this, edited /etc/lilo.conf to set vga=788, ran lilo to recreate my boot info and lo and behold, it's fine. Marvellous! (Still don't know why it doesn't like 791, though.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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