I have recently been gifted an hp laptop that is running linux mint 19.3. i went to use it one day and opened it to a black screen with a flashing underscore. i’ve tried multiple times to fix it but i don’t know how. any recommendations? i’m new to this.
Try adding “–verbose” argument to GRUB boot, to see where the hangup is.
I have had Mint VMs fail to start and hang on a blinking cursor and never launching X once they’re out of disk space (like several MB left).
A couple of things to try:
- when the laptop first boots press the relevant button (usually F10 on hp machines but your model may vary) to enter the bios. Navigate to the menu that says “boot device” or “boot order” and make sure the Linux mint drive is visible (it will probably say something like “Ubuntu uefi”. If it isn’t the first device in a list, change the order so it is the startup device.
If you can’t see the device in the boot list, or you don’t feel comfortable changing those settings, proceed to step 2.
- You will need to have another computer handy or a friend’s try creating a new usb stick for Linux mint.
https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
You can use this link to create a new pendrive and boot from that. It should just run when you plug it into the laptop but if not you will need to use step 1 to change the boot order.
Once you boot into the “liveusb” version of Linux you can open the computer hard drive in the file navigator screen. Navigate to the home directory and you can find any files or documents you have saved there.
The next step is a choice. You can either attempt to repair the install by checking settings and detailed configs (this requires experience), or what I would do at this point is reinstall Linux mint from the liveusb. There will be an icon on your desktop that says install. Only do this if you are confident you have copied all the documents and files.
If you want to be super safe, you can clone the hard drive before wiping it, or swap the disk completely if you can open the machine. It depends how important the data on the drive is.
I usually do the above procedure at least once a year when I break something on a Linux install (usually my own fault). It should work just fine after the reinstall and Linux had all the driver’s it needs built in.
Hopefully helps but post back when you are doing it and someone will help with any specific questions.
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Is it just that X is not starting? Can you get a terminal and log into the machine?
<ctrl>+<alt>+<F2>
If so, you can look at the journal and look to see if there are any interesting errors.
journalctl
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