Black screen after reboot during clean install of Fedora 18

omega13a · #1 29th January 2013, 12:35 AM

I did a clean install of Fedora 18 from a DVD. When I rebooted after the installation was finished, everything was fine up until it was time for the OS to start loading. When it got to that point, the monitor just went black. No messages, no nothing. Just black. Thinking maybe it might take awhile for something to come up, I left the computer alone for a few hours and still nothing. I've tried reinstalling and had the same results. Any help at this point will be greatly apreciated because I am starting to loose my mind trying to figure out what is wrong.

Ihatewindows · #2 29th January 2013, 05:23 AM

Most probably a video driver issue where either your graphics isn't supported or it can't scratch up a working driver. A simple solution is to just run it in a virtual machine. It shouldn't make your head spin with crazy problems like this.

broadstairs · #3 29th January 2013, 08:37 AM

Well I think knowing a bit more about your hardware would be good, particularly the gfx card.

I do have a similar issue which I can get round, you might try the following...

1 when grub2 screen comes up hit 'e' to edit the grub config
2 find the line containing set gfxpayload=keep
3 change this to set gfxppayload=text
4 hit F10 which will boot the amended config

as I say this gets my system up but without knowing more about your system its hard to know if this will help.

stuart

omega13a · #4 29th January 2013, 08:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by broadstairs

Well I think knowing a bit more about your hardware would be good, particularly the gfx card.

The graphics card is a NVIDIA GeForce 6200 and the CPU is a Pentium IV 3.2 gHz.

Quote:

Originally Posted by broadstairs

I do have a similar issue which I can get round, you might try the following...

1 when grub2 screen comes up hit 'e' to edit the grub config
2 find the line containing set gfxpayload=keep
3 change this to set gfxppayload=text
4 hit F10 which will boot the amended config

as I say this gets my system up but without knowing more about your system its hard to know if this will help.

I would try that but the grub2 screen doesn't come up...

nsnbm · #5 30th January 2013, 12:04 AM

Hello omega,

I haven't tried exactly this, but what I would try is running the install DVD and choose the troubleshooting option in the menu on the screen and get to the prompt in /mnt/sysimage. I would then run:

Code:

chroot /mnt/sysimage

and make the change which broadstairs suggests by navigating to the /boot/grub2/grub.cfg file and changing the word "keep" to "text" with a text editior, like vi, in every instance in that file ... there may be 2 or more instances, and write the file.
Then I'd reboot and hopefully would boot into the console.

omega13a · #6 30th January 2013, 05:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nsnbm

Hello omega,

I haven't tried exactly this, but what I would try is running the install DVD and choose the troubleshooting option in the menu on the screen and get to the prompt in /mnt/sysimage. I would then run:

Code:

chroot /mnt/sysimage

and make the change which broadstairs suggests by navigating to the /boot/grub2/grub.cfg file and changing the word "keep" to "text" with a text editior, like vi, in every instance in that file ... there may be 2 or more instances, and write the file.
Then I'd reboot and hopefully would boot into the console.

I just tried that. Didn't work...

nsnbm · #7 30th January 2013, 06:32 AM

Hello omega,

Sorry about that failure. The boot may not be getting to grub. In the past I have on occasion had to enter the BIOS to find if it could help, which it did (long ago in much earlier linuxes) in the form of a setting which allowed for "unix" as opposed to other operating systems, and I remember another setting which was for "legacy" operating systems, which also made a difference. These were BIOSs of long ago, so I guess this is a very long shot indeed, but I mention it because it came to mind. In any case I'd have a look in the BIOS to see what it offers especially in relation to video. Otherwise I suppose I'd check the system with a known-working video card.

omega13a · #8 16th February 2013, 11:37 PM

After much expirementing, I discoved that I can't get anything more recent than Fedora 14 to work on my computer. I still want to get Fedora 18 to work. I have a hunch it has something to do with Kernel 3 though I don't know what...

Also,

Quote:

Originally Posted by nsnbm

Hello omega,

Sorry about that failure. The boot may not be getting to grub. In the past I have on occasion had to enter the BIOS to find if it could help, which it did (long ago in much earlier linuxes) in the form of a setting which allowed for "unix" as opposed to other operating systems, and I remember another setting which was for "legacy" operating systems, which also made a difference. These were BIOSs of long ago, so I guess this is a very long shot indeed, but I mention it because it came to mind. In any case I'd have a look in the BIOS to see what it offers especially in relation to video. Otherwise I suppose I'd check the system with a known-working video card.

I can't find anything in BIOS that mentions unix.

steelaworkn · #9 17th February 2013, 12:46 AM

You might have one of the 32 bit P4 processors. Did you try the 32 bit Fedora?