Freezing on boot

[neil40]

I had a machine die on me so I got another box and put the old hard disk in it. If I let the "new" machine boot normally it gets to the Ubuntu splash screen with the dots underneath the logo and freezes. If I boot it with the left hand shift key held down and then chose the advanced option and choose the second option and when that finishes chose to resume a normal boot. It boots to the login and works perfectly. I am using it to type this message. How do I fix this so that it boots without having to go through this complicated procedure?

[Autodave]

Some specs on that machine might help. What version of Linux are you running?

[neil40]

Here are some specs. This is the processor. Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E7400 @ 2.80GHz
The machine has 2GB of ram at the disc is about half a gig. I don't know what else is relevant. In fact I can't see that the specs are too relevant in solving this problem. It is software. It may be some interaction with hardware somewhere but as this is an old machine from Ebay then I don't have the full details that night come with a new machine. It should just work surely?
There is obviously some thing different that happens when you go into recovery mode because it works when I go into it.
What would be useful is some log to look at or some way of monitoring what is happening so at least I can find when in the process it stops working and freezes. Unless, of course, someone knows precisely what is wrong and how to fix it.