It sounds like you're experiencing some nvidia/display driver issues as you mentioned.
9 out of 10 times when this happens it's a bad driver or a corrupt file system.
If Ubuntu is not declaring to run in a read-only file system when you booted or when you try to auto-complete commands from the command line for example, then its most likely an Nvidia issue.
Since you have Nvidia and a laptop, I'm going to assume it has an Intel processor.
That makes it so that you need to use Nvidia Optimus to switch between the performance and discrete modes of the dedicated GPU. It also means the reason the OS is stuck on a regular boot and not the recovery mode is probably because the recovery mode uses the nouveau drivers (proprietary Intel display drivers)
and while they boot more easily, they are also very bad to use, especially when you have an Nvidia card.
I cannot derive from the context of your problem if the Ubuntu install has worked in the past, and it broke, or if it has been broken since installing, but I would suggest the following:
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic
sudo dkms remove nvidia
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current
sudo nvidia-xconfig
sudo reboot
if this does not solve the problem, first correctly install nouveau drivers, reboot so you have working graphical user interface like normal, do the steps outlined above (or install the Nvidia drivers with software center, but I recommend terminal, it will actually show what is going wrong during the install and software center does not show you.) that will install Nvidia drivers.
after that you can blacklist the nouveau drivers.
Alternatively, you can add Nvidia Xorg server (the Nvidia settings app for Ubuntu) to start with an additional argument so it always boots on performance mode.
might be useful if you play games. If not then maybe you could use power saving mode by default.
install nouveau:
sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-nouveau
Realistically, you should be able to reboot into normal Ubuntu now.
now from terminal again do a:
gksu gedit
From the gedit open /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf.
Add this line at the bottom: blacklist nouveau
Save the file and open /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-graphics-drivers.conf
Add these lines:
blacklist nouveau
blacklist lbm-nouveau
blacklist nvidia-173
blacklist nvidia-96
alias nvidia nvidia-current
Now save this file and close gedit.
To do this, run:
sudo nvidia-xconfig
and then:
sudo apt-get remove xserver-xorg-video-nouveau
followed by:
sudo shutdown -r now
Check drivers in use for search term "VGA". This should display both Intel and Nvidia (unless you remove nouveau, ofc.)
lspci -k | grep -A 2 -i "VGA"
