Blank screen on startup

[lerak87]

Hi there

I have an old Dell dimension 300 PC which before going to Canada for 6 months, I installed ubuntu 8.10 on and to the best of my knowledge it was working when i left. Since then i have returned and with a need for another pc in the house, set about connecting it to my wireless network and plugging a monitor, keyboard and mouse in. This was yesterday and everything went pretty smoothly (once i had installed ndiswrapper) and so happy in the knowledge that it was working, I moved the pc into its permanent location.

Today i went to boot up however when the power on button was pressed, the last screen i would see would be after the grub loader and would say starting, then "loading please wait..." before going to a completely blank screen. I tried googling the problem, however have been unable to find any solution. I am somewhat of a linux newbie. Please help!!

Thanks very much,

Karl

EDIT: In addition to the above problem, i have managed to make Ubuntu boot when I remove the wireless usb adapter, however if i plug it back in again whilst ubuntu is running, it causes the system to freeze. As stated before I had the wireless working yesterday with no problems.

[badger89]

i have the same issue. I hold down the left arrow key and it carries on booting for me but there has to be a better solution to this than that.
I know mine isnt due to a hardware fault cos i reinstalled xp and i had no problems. I went back to Kubuntu and it still happens