Black screen with underscore, was running ok

[yauck]

I had Ubuntu running smoothly yesterday but somehow I got a black screen with a flashing white underscore today shortly after I boot the computer. Any advise for a newbie? I had installed something the yesterday but I supposed it is not causing the problem. Ubuntu was still running ok after the installation.

[QIII]

Hello!

Did you reboot after the installation, or was this the first reboot? What did you install?

Could you tell us a little about the hardware specs of your machine, particularly the graphics and driver?

Have you done any updates lately?

Cheers!

[yauck]

Hi, thanks for replying. The matter is a bit complicated.

We had a problem with the graphics earlier. A small piece of plastic fell into the graphic slots interrupting the detection.

We could not turn on the computer for several months and many new updates were not made during the interruption. Finally, we got the problem fixed and made the necessary updates. The computer and Ubuntu are doing well.

Then, I need to install a software (called ProjectAten) which I did yesterday. Upon completing the installation, the Ubuntu is still running and everything seems to be okay.

Today, I could not launch Ubuntu, only a black screen with a white underscore.

The graphic card is ASUS EAH5670/DI/1GD5.

I hope it wasn't the software that I have installed that caused this problem. If it does, what options do I have to get Ubuntu running again?

[QIII]

The card you specified appears to be an ATI GPU. Did you have the ATI graphics driver installed prior to the interruption? How did you install the driver? Which version of Ubuntu do you have installed?

[yauck]

hi, i think i have found the problem. it's not with ubuntu but rather because the computer fails to detect the primary ide... anyway, thanks for your help.