Get a blank screen and a cursor when accessing DVD Player

Asked by Rich.b

Home built PC 8GB Ram, 2 X 2TB HD, SSD480GB

Ubuntu 18.04LTS Up to date.

If I set boot option to boot first from P4 (dvd/cd player)

All I see is blank screen and cursor near top left hand side. (Whether or not there is DVD or CD in the player)

If I do a normal boot to Ubuntu I can read DVD/CD's OK.

Please advise how can I Boot from a Live CD/DVD which is why I am asking this question.

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Rich.b
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Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#1

What is the CD you are trying to boot?

Revision history for this message
Rich.b (aybi30) said :
#2

Thank you Andrew for you response

I have tried 2 DVD's

1/ Linux Format LXFDVD157 Tails (Tor) - Can see all other Magazine content etc on DVD.

2/ DVD copy for Ubuntu Ver 16.042 x64 (which I have used 2 years ago)

Note: Whether or not CD or DVD is in the player/recorder I still get the same blank screen and cursor near top left hand side.

I used you able boot from the DVD but since ( I Think) I got infuriated with Windows 10 with a Dual Boot Window 10/Ubuntu 18.04 and I did a reinstall of Ubuntu 18.04 (ONLY) on SSD.

Do you a replacement DVD drive available, so far not fitted.

Hope this helps?

Richard

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#3

What video hardware does the system use please? If you have an integrated video system as well as a video display card then please give details of both
Thanks

Revision history for this message
Rich.b (aybi30) said :
#4

Sorry I do not know. Is this of any help?

richard@richard-H81M-S2H:~$ sudo lscpu
[sudo] password for richard:
Architecture: x86_64
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order: Little Endian
CPU(s): 2
On-line CPU(s) list: 0,1
Thread(s) per core: 1
Core(s) per socket: 2
Socket(s): 1
NUMA node(s): 1
Vendor ID: GenuineIntel
CPU family: 6
Model: 60
Model name: Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU G3220 @ 3.00GHz
Stepping: 3
CPU MHz: 2317.915
CPU max MHz: 3000.0000
CPU min MHz: 800.0000
BogoMIPS: 5986.17
Virtualisation: VT-x
L1d cache: 32K
L1i cache: 32K
L2 cache: 256K
L3 cache: 3072K
NUMA node0 CPU(s): 0,1
Flags: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc cpuid aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer xsave rdrand lahf_lm abm cpuid_fault invpcid_single pti ssbd ibrs ibpb stibp tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase tsc_adjust erms invpcid xsaveopt dtherm arat pln pts md_clear flush_l1d
richard@richard-H81M-S2H:~$ sudo lshw
richard-h81m-s2h
    description: Desktop Computer
    product: H81M-S2H (To be filled by O.E.M.)
    vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
    version: To be filled by O.E.M.
    serial: To be filled by O.E.M.
    width: 64 bits
    capabilities: smbios-2.7 dmi-2.7 smp vsyscall32
    configuration: boot=normal chassis=desktop family=To be filled by O.E.M. sku=To be filled by O.E.M. uuid=FC02AA03-1404-B205-F206-DC0700080009
  *-core
       description: Motherboard
       product: H81M-S2H
       vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
       physical id: 0
       version: x.x
       serial: To be filled by O.E.M.
       slot: To be filled by O.E.M.
     *-firmware
          description: BIOS
          vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
          physical id: 0
          version: F2
          date: 08/11/2015
          size: 64KiB
          capacity: 4032KiB
          capabilities: pci upgrade shadowing cdboot bootselect socketedrom edd int13floppy1200 int13floppy720 int13floppy2880 int5printscreen int9keyboard int14serial int17printer acpi usb biosbootspecification uefi
     *-cache:0
          description: L1 cache
          physical id: 4
          slot: CPU Internal L1
          size: 128KiB
          capacity: 128KiB
          capabilities: internal write-back
          configuration: level=1
     *-cache:1
          description: L2 cache
          physical id: 5
          slot: CPU Internal L2
          size: 512KiB
          capacity: 512KiB
          capabilities: internal write-back unified
          configuration: level=2
     *-cache:2
          description: L3 cache
          physical id: 6
          slot: CPU Internal L3
          size: 3MiB
          capacity: 3MiB
          capabilities: internal write-back unified
          configuration: level=3
     *-memory
          description: System Memory
          physical id: 7
          slot: System board or motherboard
          size: 8GiB
        *-bank:0
             description: DIMM DDR3 Synchronous 1400 MHz (0.7 ns)
             product: 99U5584-005.A00LF
             vendor: Kingston
             physical id: 0
             serial: 831667CC
             slot: ChannelA-DIMM0
             size: 4GiB
             width: 64 bits
             clock: 1400MHz (0.7ns)
        *-bank:1

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#5

OK are you using the on board GPU? Your CPU seems to have an integrated GPU...

Revision history for this message
Rich.b (aybi30) said :
#6

Yes

Do not have a separate GPU.

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#7

Try the boot option:

nomodeset

Revision history for this message
Rich.b (aybi30) said :
#8

richard@richard-H81M-S2H:~$ sudo nomodeset
[sudo] password for richard:
sudo: nomodeset: command not found

That did not work.

What to do next.

May be this.

A text editor will open with the grub configuration file. Near the top of that file you will see something very similar to this:

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

add your custom boot options to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT line, so for instance:

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#9

Yes but that doesn't work for booting CDs. Nomodeset isn't a command. It's a kernel option. If you are having issues with an installed Ubuntu OS otry booting an older kernel as a good start.

Is this the issue here? Please clarify

Revision history for this message
Rich.b (aybi30) said :
#11

Note:

When I first started to change the boot option there was a screen change in format and I assume a program was running.
This show on the left hand side large numbers and some other data/commands which whizzed upward very fast.

it looked something like this:-

58.674849392183 DataXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
58.674849392183 DataXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
58.674849392183 DataXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
58.674849392183 DataXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
58.674849392183 DataXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
58.674849392183 DataXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
58.674849392183 DataXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
58.674849392183 DataXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Then if I remember correctly the blank screen with flashing cursor.

I hope this of help.

Richard.

Revision history for this message
Rich.b (aybi30) said :
#12

Thanks for the info.

So how do I change to an older kernel ?

Do I run an earlier Ubuntu OS like 17.04 - which have a copy on one of my 2TB HD's

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#13

Is the issue on an installed Ubuntu OS or is the issue with the live CDs?

Revision history for this message
Rich.b (aybi30) said :
#14

Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS has been working find since it was upgraded from 16.04 LTS

So I have not problem there as far as I know.

So the thing I can not do is boot from a live CD/DVD, this is my problem.

How can I solve this problem?

Revision history for this message
Rich.b (aybi30) said :
#15

I would like to be able to either or both boot from a live CD/DVD or USB stick, to safely look at a dodgy looking link that I received in an email that I am not sure of and do this safely.

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said :
#16
Revision history for this message
Rich.b (aybi30) said :
#17

Thank you again Andrew, I will into the Boot Options, there seams to be lots.

Thanks

Richard