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Okay, due to some unfortunate events, I was left with 3 broken computers. Luckily, I was left with 2 dead hard drives and one working one. So I decided to just swap em' out and get a working computer again. However, this new set up ran into some problems with Windows XP wanting to be verified, and this thing wasn't likely to connect to wifi anytime soon. (This problem still baffles me) So, I decided that because i prefer Ubuntu anyways, I might as well convert the hard drive over. So i went ahead, made a bootable USB drive, and freshly installed Ubuntu 14.04.1 onto the computer, while removing Windows XP (The hard drive really doesn't have the capacity to do a partition. 100 something Gig) So, the install seemed to go well, however, when it asked to restart, the computer didn't exactly boot up correctly, and just resulted in a plain black screen after the "Ubuntu" Loading screen. So, i did a second fresh install, while this time i connected it to the internet beforehand in hopes that those updates, software, and other assortments of things would fix my problem. Much to my despair, it didn't. I got it to boot up to the desktop twice, but everything but the cursor is frozen and the keyboard wasn't doing much either. a few other times, it resulted in a plain black screen, as well as, other times, a black screen with small red dots arranged in diagonal lines across the screen.

So, I am not the most computer literate, however, I am for from illiterate. I just don't understand what the cause of this could be, the installation went uninterrupted, and I am positive that the hard drive was the only problem with the system before i switched it out. Could this be a problem with the hard drive? or another part of the system?

System Specs (or at least what i know) Processor: AMD Athlon x2 64 bit 3 Gig of RAM Hard Drive 250 Gig, from Windows XP Media center edition 2005 (i thought it was much less. must have had a lot of junk on it)

If there is any other information that i would need to provide, i would be happy to do so.

Joe-H
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    When the computer boots and stops where it does can you switch to a virtual terminal? Hold down the Control + Alt keys and press a function key like F1. It you get a text-mode login screen and can log into that in text mode then it is likely a graphics driver problem that may be resolvable from the command line. If you can log in in text mode do sudo apt-get update followed by sudo apt-get upgrade and then reboot to see if available updates help. – headkase Oct 10 '14 at 00:55

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I ran into the same issue with my system that has similar specs. I was able to get my system to boot by booting into recovery mode with the graphics fail safe settings enabled.

Instructions for booting with low graphic settings

  1. Boot PC leaving SHIFT pressed to make the GRUB Menu show.
  2. Select Recovery Mode which will continue booting correctly until the Recovery Menu appeares.
  3. Select from the recovery menu failsafeX.

This allowed me to use my system some before installing another graphics card, but you might be able to update the graphics card driver at this point. This link has some directions for attempting driver updates.

System Specs - Processor: AMD Athlon x2 64 bit 2 Gig of RAM Hard Drive 200 Gig, from Windows XP.

Community
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Gibado
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This question is hard to answer because it could be multiple things. You could have a corrupted Ubuntu ISO. Did you ever compare the MD5 hash of the ISO to the one it is supposed to be? Try re-downloading the ISO file if you have a computer available. Also, I have had video cards that for some reason hated Linux and would do things like you mentioned. If you are using a video card, try another one if there is an extra one available or integrated graphics.

JohnDoe
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  • This is not an answer and should have been made instead as a comment on the original post like my own. – headkase Oct 10 '14 at 01:43
  • It said I must have 50 reputation to comment, and that is why I didn't put it as a comment. – JohnDoe Oct 10 '14 at 02:40
  • It lets me comment on this for some reason, but when I click on "add a comment" on the problem above, it just says I need 50 reputation. – JohnDoe Oct 10 '14 at 02:41