Ubuntu boots to a blank screen after fresh install

Question

I want to remove Windows 7 from my existing system and do a fresh install of Ubuntu 15.10 LTS. I have given this a few attempts and and I have chosen the option that says "Erase everything and Install Ubuntu."

It then prompted me to reboot. After a reboot, nothing appears to be loaded and it's stuck on a black screen with a blinking typing bar and its not interactive!

I can't load up the boot menu because nothing appears to be loading.

What happens if you boot from the installation media and choose to try Ubuntu without installing? Does Ubuntu work properly for that? — Olathe, Mar 26 '16 at 00:45
Installation media? What do you mean. But everytime i boot up my pc it goes to a blacl screen with a typing cursor up top left — jeremi kest, Mar 26 '16 at 00:46
What about [Control]+[Alt]+[F2,F3,F4,etc], do you get access to alternate terminal login screens? — Madivad, Mar 26 '16 at 03:19
It wont boot an os. Everytime i try to reboot it goes to a black screen with A blinking cursor at top left — jeremi kest, Mar 26 '16 at 03:20
did you try and read through and try the solutions in the linked possible duplicate of question above? — Madivad, Mar 26 '16 at 03:22
But is t possible to make my flash drive boot faster so i can trt and boot Ubuntu off of it? — jeremi kest, Mar 26 '16 at 03:23
That's even further off topic and beyond the scope. but using a USB3 port and USB3 is about the best you're going to get, or use a real bootable CD. — Madivad, Mar 26 '16 at 03:28
what options pop up if you go into the Boot section in the boot menu? — lolrepeatlol, Mar 26 '16 at 00:35

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 26 '16 at 03:36

A few possible things to try (some of these have already been suggested, but for completeness are included):

Check your BIOS settings that your chosen hard drive is still the boot device
Boot to a Ubuntu Live CD (instead of installing Ubuntu, click the "Try Ubuntu" option instead
In the Live "Try Ubuntu" mode, check the boot drive by running "Disks" and check it is marked as bootable
Check grub installation and settings (maybe someone can add some hints here)
Try the install again and pay careful and particular care around the last option of where to install grub, my guess is that is where your problem is. The system is unbootable because it doesn't know where to look*

*If you try the reinstall method, be careful where you install grub. Make sure it is your local hard drive, and not the USB key, or a partition of the harddrive. I typically (and think the best practice may be to) install it to the primary boot device and not in any particular partition. For me with a USB key in the computer this is usually /dev/sdb since sda will be the usb key (although it could be reversed (maybe)

as an aside, I find installing anything much easier if you remove all the hard drives and leave only the hard drive you are going to install onto. This:

removes the chances of error (wiping the wrong drive for example)
leaves you with only one real place to install grub (and it's not the key)

Once you do a clean boot, you can shut down and reinstall any extra/data drives

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 26 '16 at 03:57

likely to be a uefi setting which is supported by Ubuntu. The ubuntu install program should tell you this, but they do not. Go to your Bios and enter security settings. Then you need to type a password to change things (on acer). BE VERY CAREFUL! remember this password. Select, to add trusted uefi and it will bring you to some directory. Select that directory and ubuntu until you see efi files.
reboot and hopefully you will be all set to go. When you are finished, go back to security settings and change the password back to . (like type nothing). This will clear boot security. Enter bios setup a few more times and see if security has no password again while you are still fresh with the password. If there is no password, that is good. Now boot with ubuntu and see if that helps.

Make sure the boot order is correct too. You might see a file before or after you set the uefi settings as something like "0yes" or "1yes". This is the grub thing to put at the top of the boot order list.

File a bug on Ubuntu for not being user friendly for newer computers. On the other hand, you have win7 which means that you have an old computer. In that case, boot live and install boot-repair. Google how to do it. Either of these two suggestions should help. Do boot-repair last.

Ubuntu boots to a blank screen after fresh install

2 Answers2