Black Screen at Boot

[Roguehorse]

I know this is an old problem that comes back from time to time but, someone at my university asked about this and for the life of me couldn't remember as it's been a couple of years since I ran into it.

Seems this person has a HP dv4 laptop and does not know what graphics card or processor (if it matters). They tried to do a basic (no options just follow directions) install from LiveCD and when they take the CD out and try to boot from the disk, all they get is a blinking curser. After multiple tries they continue to get the same results. What should they be looking for and how can they proceed from here?

[vinnywright]

it is posable thay did not get grub(the boot loader) installed to the MBR but to a partition instead ,,,,,ask them if thay remember where the installer sead it was going to install grub to ,,,it should have been installed to /dev/sda not /dev/sdax where "x" is a partition number .

NOW if the blinking cursor is grub> that is the grub rescue prompt and a different situation

VINNY

[bweinel]

If they're getting nothing when trying to boot (as you described,) I'd agree with vinny that its likely they didn't get grub on the MBR.

However, there is also an issue like this where you boot into lightdm, then enter your logon credentials, and get the black screen when the system tries to start the kde desktop. This usually requires you to pause at the grub boot screen and use 'nomodeset' as an option during the grub boot up in order to work around it. This seems to be a common occurance on older video cards.

cheers,
bill