Unable to login damaged or missing graphics driver

I should have said Im completely blocked or locked out from a log-in screen. The machine boots up OK, loads the bios, loads the NIC, and detects the graphics /monitor (its a Samsung 27inch display which actual 1920x1080 res) but only very very low res of 640 x 700? at 70hrz and then the screen shows white background with black Verticle bars which just hangs !! i.e. that's as far as I can get.

**NOTE: I'm 100% confident that the rest of my Ubuntu 11.04 installation remains in tact apart from this one corrupted/damaged config file (i.e. how too undo the damage)

**I tried to remove the experimental 3D driver for the current (280.13) driver and that's whats caused the damage as far as I can see.

**now I have no working display driver it seems

Ivan

Have you tested your RAM?
Can you boot an older kernel?

You do both before the login screen shows. Hold shift at boot

Can you switch to Console when X hangs (ctrl+alt+f1)?
If no choose the Recovery Boot Option. It should not start X and throw you at the console.
It does not look like X would not work at all but rather the experimental (nvidia?) drivers crashing your system.
On console log in and have a look at /var/log/Xorg*.log (cat /var/log/Xorg*.log | grep EE) should only spit out errors.

You know about the console and what commands there are for managing packages?
Anyway that can be read up. Some hints below. man <command> usually is great help.

You could find the installed driver packages with dpkg --list | grep nvidia
write the names down and remove them afterwards with apt-get remove --purge.
After that reinstall the nividia packages with apt-get install.
Installation should spit out information by dkms building the kernel modules
If all went ok -> reboot.

I have the feeling you installed the drivers from nvidia directly and not from Ubuntu?
I would strongly recommend not to do that.

If above did not help, please double check the nvidia readme how to uninstall them.
and reinstall the nvidia drivers like written above.

You know that Ubuntu contains development drivers as easy to install package? It's called nvidia-current. You can see the Version you have in natty by apt-cache show nvidia-current and install it with apt-get install nvidia-current.

The natty nvidia-current may not be the newest available - but it is tested and mostly works.
If not you can go back to the stable nvidia release (nvidia-173 if I recall corrently)

If you need more information on the nvidia drivers in ubuntu you could ask google, there are some articles in the wikis which might be enlightening.

Hope that helps!

Hello again,

No! still TOTALLY unable to reach a login screen (tried pressing the shift key during boot up,nothing happens). I cannot reach any console or non graphic related screen, all I get is white screen with black bars spaced evenly.

**Analyzing the problem, I have a correctly installed Nvidia graphics driver downloaded directly from the makers website and correctly installed. But NOT correctly configured (the OS has the files but linux is NOT using this driver as the xorg.config file needed editing to use this driver and I needed to restart the X server to do this but I didnt know how (task was a bit beyond me present knowledge).

**The update driver too showed the (Nvidia current driver 280.13 installed ) and the old graphics driver in the list the BIG mistake was removing the older driver which had worked (hoped the new one would work but because it wasnt correctly configured it fails).

HELP!! STILL TOTALLY STUCK, NO! LOGIN only white screen with black vertical bars.

HOW CAN I RESCUE THIS SITUATION, advise for a relative newbee on Ubuntu?? any advise please can this be rescued I would very much like to try. But accept I might have to wipe & reinstall if all else fails :-) living in hope here fingers crossed.

Thanks Ivan

The problem remains that without ANY kind of viable login screen the machine is totally useless, its a catch22. Even though I have a fully installed linux box without a screen image I cannot login to fix the problem.

**The installed graphics driver is working but not correctly configured so it cannot give (provide) a screen image or login screen.

**I do not really want to have to wipe the whole machine and start from scratch but its looking like it may be the only real answer. As I cannot see how this situation can be rescued ANY FURTHER ADVISE OR COMMENTS APPRECAITED. THANKS Ivan

Final CONCLUSION:-

The ONLY solution is to wipe disk 0 (zero) and re-install the entire OS as if from scratch. I cannot see any other way of fixing this problem. I am effectively locked out of the machine as things remain.

**Lesson learnt stick to Cannonical approved graphics drivers (DONT try installing the makers drivers even if they are for the linux OS).

You should still be able to boot with an Ubuntu live CD and access your hard disk for repair activities.

NOP !!sadly I have tried to boot with the Natty LiveCD CD-R disk.

But the problem remains no screen image. Basically as far as I can tell the graphics driver is actually loading but the screen resolution detected via the cable & monitor is so low that it cannot form a viable screen image.

**I think its probably now faster & more straightforwards for me to wipe & re-partition the primary disk & start again, re-install Natty. The lesson for me, is that I should have left a perfectly working graphics driver alone and NOT hankered for a newer Nvidia driver version. Whilst this Nvidia driver upgrade is an easy upgrade in windows 7 its definitely a far more complex task in Ubuntu and for a relative newbee its a painful learning curve.

**Its NOT that the newer Nvidia (290.13) driver didnt install it did successfully, but because I couldnt edit the xorg.conf file & restart the X server this is where the problem lay. Also I now realize I hadnt killed the X server process and that was yet another problem. I have leant and it is rescuable but it involves a rebuild to get back to where I was before all this happened.

**Without a screen image how can you uninstall/install a driver its a paradox.

Whatever misconfiguration there might be on your hard disk installation, you should be able to boot from the LiveCD in the 'test ubuntu' mode, because this does not use the installation on the hard disk. (Do not use the option 'boot the OS from the hard disk' that may be offered when starting from the LiveCD!)

If the LiveCD does not show anything on screen, you either have to use a special boot flag (like 'nomodeset'), or your hardware does not function with the generic drivers delivered with Ubuntu (or does not function at all).

Possible steps to take in a situation like yours:
1. Check if the grub menu comes up when trying to boot from the hard disk (press 'shift' as soon as the BIOS boot messages have disappeared).
1a. If this is not the case, boot from the LiveCD and repair grub, go back to 1.
1b. If grub menu is shown continue with 2.
2. In the grub menu select 'recovery mode' and 'root command prompt'
That environment will enable you to do all configuration changes, (de)installation of software etc. on the (broken) installation on the hard disk (using chroot command to affect the installation on the harddisk and not the running system from the LiveCD).

Hello Manfred,

Many many thanks for your detailled & helpful reply to my problems. I have tried pressing the shift key during the boot process after the bios screen but get nothing, only the white background with black verticle bars on screen. i.e. couldnt get to a GRUB screen or recovery options. I suspect that even if I was able to get to a command prompt I wouldnt know how to fix the problem because my knowledge of terminal commands & Ubuntu is still rather novice level.

**I'll probably end up going to go for a fix that I know will work i.e. a full rebuild which might be quicker anyway in my case. That way I will be able to restore the previous 3D driver supported by Ubuntu & Cannonical.

**The lesson here is not that I installed the wrong or bad driver for my nvidia graphics card but that I could edit the Xorg.config nor was I able to restart the X server.

Thanks Ivan

No further answers/replies needed now. Re-install will be done. Thanks Ivan

can close this posting now, solved.