Ubuntu Installation :: Fixing Grub - Volume Hangs With A Non-blinking Cursor In The Upper Left?
Mar 11, 2010
I set my drives up with MY boot loader, and I boot several OSes.I installed Ubuntu and told it to place grub on the / drive, which is where I always put it with any other install and it works fine.I find now that despite telling the install where to put it, you guys have taken it upon yourselves to alter the MBR of the volume ANYWAY!
SO, what I need to do is re-install grub, but I see that you also have no repair facility on this disc either. All I want to do is use MY boot loader. Currently, when I point at the / volume it just hangs with a non-blinking cursor in the upper left.No other Linux installs I have performed over the years do this. I want the drive to boot by merely pointing my bootloader at that volume.It always has in the past, so what did you guys change? I want NO action on my MBR, but I DO want a working grub on the actual root volume, which is NOT the first volume on the drive.
I have a problem - after installation of Ubuntu 9.10 I discovered that I do not have virtual terminals on my computer. When I am trying to switch, to another virtual terminal with, say, Ctr-Alt-F2, I am getting a black screen with lonely cursor blinking in the upper left corner (no login prompt).my tty2.conf file is
Code: # tty2 - getty # # This service maintains a getty on tty2 from the point the system is # started until it is shut down again. start on runlevel [23] stop on runlevel [!23]
This issue was solved On June 9th. Root cause was Kore 2 controller device being misinterpreted as a pointing device. I hope to eventually use the Kore as a straight-up MIDI controller in Ubuntu Studio, but that's a long way off. For now I will unplug it whenever I boot Ubuntu Studio. XINPUT LIST gave me the hint I needed to figure this out. Original post and problem resolution thread follows:
I'm a total Linux newbie, but well versed in Windows. Just installed Ubuntu Studio 10.10. This was a clean install, not an upgrade.. Installation went fine, but when I boot into it, I get the cursor stuck at the upper left corner of the screen. When I move the mouse, the cursor will move, but it immediately jumps back to the upper left corner. I can't select anything except to open the main menu. Then I must use keyboard cursor control to navigate.
What does it mean if you boot from a live CD, the CD spins, a screen appears with the keyboard and human icons at the bottom, then a blank screen appears with a blinking cursor in the upper left corner - and that's it? It just stays that way.
I've tried two different discs, one 10.04 and one 10.10; and two different disc drives.
I have rebuild my system, with an Asus motherboard M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 with radeon 4250 integrated 8 Gb memory Athlon II 4x 640 2 x 1 TB sata3 WD Harddisks I installed 10.10 64bit, and ran through the whole install with the alternate CD without problems, Installed grub in the MBR on the 120 Gb partition for 10.10, it even recognised my 2 3ware pci raidcontroler on which 8.04 is installed.
When I start I get grub, when I choose for 10.10 I get a black screen with a cursor blinking in the left uppercorner. Luckily I can start into 8.04. I have no idea how to continu. for now I will burn a knoppix cd so I can read the ext4 partition with 10.10 and hope to find something to solve this.
I just attempted to install to a USB drive, and somehow in the process, GRUB overwrote my Windows 7 bootloader on the internal disk. My work laptop is now booting into a grub recovery whenever my USB key isn't present (with error: no such device and the uuid) - and hangs on a blinking cursor whenever the key is plugged in.I'm not familiar with what my options are for grub rescue, but ls shows (hd0) (hd0,msdos2) (hd0,msdos1) (fd0)
My laptop is encrypted, so I don't have much chance of recovery unless I can get back to the windows bootloader.
I have Windows XP, Vista and Ubuntu (10.04) all installed on my single hard drive. I re-installed XP and then ran the Vista CD to repair the Vista bootloader so that I could boot into XP and Vista. I can't figure out how to boot into Ubuntu now. I tried using EasyBCD (I believe an older version, maybe 1.72) to add Ubuntu to the Vista bootloader but I didn't have any luck. Ubuntu is in the menu, but when I select it, it goes to a screen that has GRUB in the upper left corner and does not load Ubuntu.
If it helps, before I re-installed XP and re-installed the Vista bootloader I was using GRUB for XP, Vista and Ubuntu because Ubuntu was the last thing to get installed.Boot Info Script 0.55 dated February 15th, 2010 ============================= Boot InfoSummary:===============================> Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdasda1: _________________________________________________________________________File system: ntfsBoot sector type: Windows Vista/7B
I finally got around to installing Fedora 15 on my HTPC. I noticed that the mouse cursor starts in the upper left corner of the screen as soon as the login screen appears. This means that after login, if I only used the keyboard so far, the Gnome Shell overlay starts immediately.This is at most an interesting quirk until I try to set XMBC to automatically launch. Now I have to press <Esc> or move the mouse to de-activate the overlay before I can use the program.Is this mouse cursor thing intended behaviour, is there some software fix, or is it a hardware quirk? I have a Radeon HD 4650 graphics card (Smolt profile).
After installing Fedora 15 from LiveUSB and rebooting it just hangs on a black screen with a blinking cursor (underscore) in the top left of the screen. If it's reached grub, it isn't responding to any commands, and mashing several key combinations (such as ctrl-alt-f1) will produce a beep usually emitted only by the BIOS (hinting that it may never be making its way to grub).
The only particularly interesting thing about the install is that by default it wanted to boot itself from the MBR on my primary-master (Windows) disk. Instead I selected the option to boot from "the first partition in sdb1", which is my primary-slave (Linux) disk, (the first partition being /boot). This way I can change which OS boots by changing the boot order in my BIOS, and so avoiding bootloader wars.
I decided to swap my media center PC over to Kubuntu after I had some issues with the Ubuntu 10.04 to 10.10 update. It has had Ubuntu on it for probably 3 years now. Most notably, the same issue is occuring now with any installer later than 9.04 which leads me to believe it is all Grub2 related.
The install runs without errors, but after booting from HD I get only a blinking insertion cursor. No Grub at all. I've held in shift, nada. I booted to Live CD and reinstalled Grub manually but still no love. It acts as though Grub simply isn't there.
I do have a second hard drive in the box that has Ubuntu 9.04 on it that I use as a backup if the OS HD gets messed up, but it is second in boot order and shouldn't be causing an issue. Besides, if that HD was booting it would be giving me legacy grub, not a blinking cursor.
I have a single XP install on another partition, but can't boot to it now that I have upgraded to 10.04. Also, when starting Ubuntu, it takes a good 30 seconds to actually start booting ubuntu after I have selected it from the GRUB list (just sits there with a blinking cursor)
Noticed other users have been directed to run the boot info script, so here are the results from that.
I've tried to install Ubuntu 11.04 for the whole afternoon and I'm stuck.Reason why I use the alternate cd is that I want to use an encrypted logical volume (full system, not just home folder). I did not create the partitions myself, I simply used the installer option for "guided LVM with encryption".But now I have the problem that I finished the installation without error, but when I boot my laptop nothing happens. I do only get a blinking cursor, but no GRUB, which I installed too (because there is a nother hdd with win 7).
I'm thinking about switching to Debian from Ubuntu, so I installed Debian (debian-7.8.0-amd64-DVD-1) in dual boot with my Ubuntu 14.10 (Uefi install). Installation process was OK (I think), I got a working GRUB that recognizes both OS, but Debian boots to a blank screen with a flashing cursor in the top left corner (Ubuntu boots perfectly). I also ran into some graphics-related problems while installing/booting Ubuntu, due to my AMD GPU graphics, that I solved adding the nomodeset option to the kernel in GRUB, but that no longer seems to do the trick here. Here's some info about my machine:
HP Envy 15 lspci 00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h (Models 10h-1fh) Processor Root Complex 00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Richland [Radeon HD 8650G] 00:01.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Trinity HDMI Audio Controller 00:04.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h (Models 10h-1fh) Processor Root Port 00:10.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH USB XHCI Controller (rev 09)
[Code] ....
I don't know why they are listed as microsoft basic data.
I installed F11 without issue but after rebooting all i got is a blinking cursor with no error messages or indeed any other form of feedback.
To check i was even getting as far as grub i went into rescue mode from the dvd and edited the grub.conf to remove the hiddenmenu option and set the timeout to something a little larger. This confirmed that grub does in fact seem to be loading fine. Selecting the Fedora entry still however leave me with just a blinking cursor.
Next i tried removing quiet from the boot commandline. same result.
Just in case i had the wrong disks configured in grub i tried swapping root(hd0,0) with every combination available with as expected various errors about either partition not being suitable or files not found.
Using grub to boot manually to a usb disk worked fine so grub does seem to work.
With no feedback at all i tried all the common options people suggest just in case the kernel is booting but not getting far enough to output to the screen. So far i tried noapic acpi=off nomodeset.
I tried installing 3 times so far with slightly different configurations just in case but still no luck.
Basic partition layout in case it helps: /dev/sda <-- boot loader installed here. /dev/sda1 /boot ext3 2GB /dev/sda2 swap 4GB /dev/sda3 / ext4 634GB
Various other disks are present but not part of the configuration. I double checked they are not mentioned anywhere in the common places like fstab.
I just installed 10.04 and for some reason once the grub screen loads and I can pick what I want to launch (regular kernel, or rescue mode), it attempts to load and then I just get a blinking cursor. I've found that I can't load the live CD either unless I use the nomodeset flag. I read in another post that this problem should be fixed by editing the /etc/default/grub file to add the nomodeset flag, which I did via nano. However, the file also says you must run update-grub after you edit the file. I tried this and it said something like it can't find / (is /dev mounted?) The hard drive itself is mounted, so I don't know why /dev wouldn't be mounted. How can I get this problem solved so I can boot to 10.04 successfully from the hard drive? (I'm typing this from the live CD right now).
I have here two old identical compaq pc's with 64mb ram.I want to copy drive/os from one machine to other. So i do a drive to drive clone (witn both hd's deing connected to another machine). And it says its done and okay. But the second (cloned) machine doesnt boot. And have the black screen with the blinking white cursor in top left corner. I have already tried to do fdisk /mbr and also copying partition table from original to destination disk. Because i think it is logical that with a drive to drive clone it sould be copied. But i have a doubt in that somehow. Because why would it not boot if it was copied then
I'm running an Acer 1810Tz, dual boot with win7.Under 9.10 and Grub I had no boot issues, however I have just completed the upgrade to 10.04 and upgraded GRUB to GRUB2.Everything boots just fine into Ubuntu, and my GRUB menu looks right, but when I select the Windows 7 option, the machine just hangs with a black screen, white cursor top left. I'm sure this is a trivial problem, something overwritten that shouldn't have been perhaps, but I have no clue where to start.
I am having trouble with the grub boot menu. I have a dual boot system, Windows XP 32 bit and Ubuntu 10.04 64 bit. Windows was preexisting when I installed Ubuntu. The install went fine but when I restarted, the Grub menu gives the option of the Windows boot loader but when I tab to that and press enter the screen goes black and the curser just blinks in the upper left corner...no XP boot. The XP drive is there as I can mount it from Ubuntu side but when I try to boot into it it does not seem to be there. What have I done and what can be done so that I can boot into the XP side?
I have an Ubuntu server virtual machine running in vmware server on a Win2003 server host. A locked up machine forced a hard reset a couple of days ago and my VM seems to be damaged.At first VMware wouldn't start the VM, complaining of a locked file. I deleted 3 .lckdirectories and was able to start up the VM. I then get a GRUB menu with 6 options - booting any of them other than memtest results in a lone underscore cursor at the upper left corner.me in the right direction as far as the next thing I should try at this point? Unfortunately I had not yet set up a rigorous backup scheme, other than internal daily db/web backups that are stored inside the VM. I have a snapshot from 3 weeks ago but upon loading the snapshot I get the same cursor.
I dual-boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu. Sometime between 4/18 and a few days ago, something happened with Windows booting up. Ubuntu boots fine, but whenever I try to boot Windows, it just goes to a black screen with a blinking cursor (the command line kind, not a pointer). At first I thought it was Windows, but I have run the repair CD and executed chkdsk /f and chkdsk /r on all partition related to windows. No effect.
I ran a system check designed for issues with booting up, and it found no errors. I have looked at my GRUB files, and they all look fine. I am not sure if it is GRUB or Windows. I tried reinstalling the Windows boot-loader, and it had the same effect, the only difference is that it bypassed GRUB. The reason I think it may be GRUB is that the error happened around the same time as me upgrading from Karmic to the Lucid RC. I have posted this on a Windows 7 forum.
I am trying to install any version of ubuntu (I even tried so far another version called jollicloud) but the result is always the same...The computer is a Dell Mini 9. I have pulled out it's SSD because it has broken.I managed to install about some months ago an ubuntu netbook version (10.04, not sure) which all worked fine from a 8GB usb stick Here are my steps:
1. Download ubuntu either netbook or standard version
2. Make a bootable flash with Unetbootin from ubuntu or other programs from windows
3. Put the flash disk and the second 8GB flash to the dell mini 9
4. Boot Ubuntu live from the first flash (sometimes I think I must put the second flash after the boot so it finds only the live version... If I have put both flashes sometimes it won' t boot)
5. install ubuntu to the other flash (to the 8GB flash drive)
6. reboot
and then...only a blinking cursor is appearing to the top left of the screen with nothing else happening...Shift does not do anything.I have some suspicion that there is no Grub at all but I am not sure for this.I am sure there is a way to make it because I ve done it before, but I don't remeber how!
i thought i would give ubuntu 10.04 a try. So i downloaded the iso twice from two differant sources and burned to 2 diff dvd with diff burners and get the same problem. When i boot off of the disk i get the menu but whether i choose install are run live cd it just sits there for a sec are 2 then goes to black screen with flashing white bar in upper left hand corner and thats all it does. even tried my 9.10 disc which i know works. but it does the exact same. I have purchased a new video card since i last ran ubuntu and its the nvidia gtx 260 core 216. would that be whats causing my problems?
I am attempting to install Ubuntu 64Bit Server 10.04 on a new server.
Server Specs: Xeon E5620 12GB RAM 2X 160GB 7200 RPM in RAID1 (Onboard Software RAID) Super Micro X8DTI-8
I am doing a typical install with no special functions on a RAID1 onboard Intel array. I know the array works because I tested it by installing Windows Server 2003 which works fine. The RAID also shows as healthy in the BIOS.
This problem is very difficult to remedy because everything seems to install fine with Ubuntu but when you reboot after the install you get a blinking cursor _ and nothing else. It appears that something happened when loading the OS but it's impossible to get past the blinking cursor because you can't type anything or escape out of it. The only thing that it will register is Ctrl+Alt+Del which will restart the server.
The funny thing is it does not display the typical Sigkill and show processes shutting down. The screen goes black and it restarts only to return to the blinking cursor. I am on my 6th attempt at an install with ubuntu and I am seriously considering switching over to windows unless.
I am almost certain this is a RAID issue because I can load the Ubuntu on 1 drive without any issues but I always get the blinking cursor in the RAID.
I'm unable to boot into my Windows OS so Im trying to install Ubuntu 11.04 on a separate partition, so I can somehow get access to the files on Windows.
I made a live cd and a flash USB, both of which when I try to boot from, will go straight to a blinking cursor and nothing else, it won't allow me to type and there are no error messages. So I can't even get the install started.
I made sure both the cd and flash USB are bootable from another pc from inside Windows.
I used the F12 DVD to upgrade my system, before all the NVIDIA warnings were posted. I have a Geforce 7100 (7 series) card and used the rpmfusion drivers on Fedora 11. After the upgrade, I get a blinking cursor at boot time. What I should do to repair the mess.
I have two computers running Ubuntu Gnome with Firefox. Upgrades yesterday (18 February 2010) at about 1430 MDT hours (UTC 2130 hours) broke Firefox on both machines. Firefox is present in the menu, and in /usr/bin/firefox, but it will not launch, not even from the command line. I have tried "sudo apt-get remove firefox" followed by "sudo apt-get install firefox" but the problem persists. When attempting to launch firefox, it does give me a tiny brown spot at the upper-left side of the screen. This can be expanded by dragging so that it is a full screen, labeled "Firefox" but there is no content in the screen...only blank space.
Problem-PC automatically boots into a black screen with blinking cursor. No message or nothing
I have 4 HD. Primary drive has Windows Vista, Secondary no OS installed. Sata1 HD Ubuntu 10.04, Sata2 Windows 7. Prior to installing windows 7 all was perfect but once I did it, grub got all screwed up. The only way I can boot into grub is if I manually select my Sata1 which has Ubuntu on it and only then it allows me to select Linux or Windows OS. How can I change that so it can boot up normally as before? I'm assuming that grub was installed in the primary drive which has vista on it, but once I installed windows 7 it got deleted and when I tried reinstalling Ubuntu, the grub was not installed in the primary drive.
I have installed today Ubuntu 10.4 LTS ..after installation the OS does not boot and just shows blank screen with cursor blinking ...any idea ..I have searched the forum a lot but cannot understand why this is happening ..re-installed twice ..This is AMD64 bit but I am installing the 32 bit ubuntu 10.4 LTS.
I installed Fedora 11 today, because I'm really looking to replace Windows. I've been running a Fedora 11 webserver at home for over a year, but this is Linux, which means that I spent about 8 hours on it over a year ago, and then only logged in once or twice since. :P
So after the install, I booted to a GRUB prompt and no menu. After searching around, I changed my BIOS settings to Large for the hard drive, and got the GRUB menu to load, and now I'm posting this from within Fedora 11, and after some good healthy exercises with the soundcard, xvid drivers, and a few other things, it's great.When I load XP from Grub, I just get a flashing underscore and no progress.XP is installed in the first partition, and has been there for a few months. Here's my grub.conf:
