Ubuntu 10.10: System hangs after login

[sdavmor]

On 03/15/2011 04:22 PM, Sam Albers wrote:
> Hello Ubuntu List,
>
> I seem to have experienced a slight failure with my Ubuntu machine
> and I was hoping that someone here, might be able to help me out.
>
> Earlier this morning, I had my cpu up and running Ubuntu 10. 10
> with no problem as was normal. I shut down my computer, went for
> lunch and then rebooted the computer at which point, I discovered
> this problem. After lunch, Ubuntu was able to load up until the
> login screen. I then enter my login information, and Ubuntu begins
> to log in as normal. This is a far as I get and my computer hangs
> with the default Ubuntu 10.10 screen visible, no icons or trays
> visible and the hard drive light glowing but no activity. I've
> waited for a long period, still to no avail. Ubuntu hangs after
> login here. The only resolution out of this is a hard reboot at
> this point.
>
> Here is what I have tried up to this point: 1) Boot from a
> different Kernel 2) Boot into recovery mode, open a terminal and
> try to update the system - So here I am able to boot into Ubuntu
> and start tty1. When I try to update the system, Ubuntu fails to
> fetch anything... I am assuming it can't access the internet. 3)
> Also Ubuntu sometimes tells me that I have a hard drive error that
>  needs fixing. So I fix it but that doesn't seem to affect the
> outcome here. And this error message is new today and only on some
> boot attempts.
>
> Has anyone ever encountered this problem before? I tried plugging
> in my external hard drive to see if I could back some of the data
> that I have on this machine and it was not recognized in /media.
>
> Can anyone recommend a good way of either sort this hanging issue
> out or a good way to get the data of this machine so I can simply
> do a OS re-install? Basically I am bit unsure as to how to proceed
> and I haven't been able to find any help on this particular issue
> in the forum. Most posts refer to installation issues. As you can
> probably guess, I am a bit of novice.
>
> Many thanks in advance for any help that you might be able to
> offer.
>
> Sam

 From the startup menu try bringing it up in "safe x" low-graphics
mode. I had to do that today because the 11.04 Alpha 3 took a dive on
reboot (problem widely reported already). So I'm currently in "safe x"
low-graphics mode which is actually not too bad.
-- 
Cheers, SDM -- a 21st Century Schizoid Man
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