Black screen, white/black cross cursor

Hi all,

My Linpus AA1 has been working happily for the 2 days since I bought it. Installed skype, VNC, and all updates yesterday and have used it since. Booted it twice this morning and it all worked - went to turn it on this afternoon and I get the initial blue Aspire One screen, then it goes black with a small black/white cross cursor and then goes no further. The mouse pad moves the cursor, the buttons for brightness work. The power button works and it shuts down. However, it will not boot to the desktop.

Can anyone help?

Rich

 

Just flashed BIOS to 3305 in the hope this would help. BIOS flash went well, but the black screen on start remains. SSHD error???

R

 

Something is certainly wrong - from what you say it sounds as though the X-server (which works the graphics, basically) is starting, but the desktop (which uses the graphics) isn't. I assume the cross is an 'X' rather than a '+'?

Unfortunately, the things you'd usually do in Linux to sort this out aren't available in Linpus - usually you'd be able to kill the X-server and/or switch to a console login and sort things out from there. In Linpus, all I can suggest is a system restore.

It could be a problem on the SDHC, but it's perhaps more likely that a config file for the desktop has somehow been corrupted.

 

Can you get to a command prompt by pressing
Ctrl+Alt+F1
then
Ctrl+Alt+F2
?

 

Hi,

Thanks for the help - it was an X and there was no way I could get a consol open
In the end I restored...

Rich

 

@rakh1: glad you're back running!

This is disabled by default on the One.

I've just enabled it on mine, just in case I ever have a need: in /etc/X11/xorg.conf, comment out the line containing 'DontVTSwitch'. That way if you do lose the desktop for some reason, at least you can get to a terminal (but if you ever hit ctrl-alt-F1 by mistake you'll wonder what has happened to your display!).

X seems to run on tty2 on the One. tty1 receives all sorts of diagnostic messages, some quite amusing (something keeps telling me "Time has not come, this means error"!), but the command prompt is available there.

 

Thanks, I'll do that - hopefully means I'll not need a full restore if it happens again - can just change xorg.conf and reboot

R

 

My Linux (Linpus) Acer Aspire One (AA1) had this X-cursor problem. I had a USB-drive with system Recovery backup, but I needed to salvage documents, e-mails and address book.

I solved this in three steps:

• 
  1. Make an image of the AA1 Solid State Disk (SSD) on a USB drive.
  2. Restored the AA1 with a Recovery USB drive.
  3. Extract the desired data files from image back to the AA1.

Hardware needed:

• A Windows PC with 3.5" floppy disk drive (FDD).[/*:m:227xenty]
• Two USB drives. I'll refer to them as Recovery (4 GB) and Lifeboat (8 GB).[/*:m:227xenty]
• Two floppy disks. I'll refer to them as Ghost 1 and Ghost 2[/*:m:227xenty]

Software needed for Windows PC:

• Norton/Symantec Ghost. Buy or borrow.[/*:m:227xenty]
• HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool V2.1.8. Free.[/*:m:227xenty]

Here is the process in detail:

Go to Windows PC.
Format a floppy disk Ghost 1 with "Create an MS-DOS startup disk" option checked.
Leave the Ghost 1 floppy in the drive. Plug in the Lifeboat USB drive.

The following steps are probably simpler with a newer version of Norton Ghost with USB drive support. I have an old 2002-version.

Make your Lifeboat USB drive bootable using HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool. Check "Create a DOS startup disk" and "using DOS system files located at:". Type or browse for location "A:\" (Ghost 1 floppy).

Put the second floppy disk into the floppy drive.
Start Norton Ghost Boot Wizard and make the Ghost 2 floppy.

Open Windows Explorer and select Tools\Folder Options... Go to View tab. In Advanced settings: Select "Show hidden files and folders" and uncheck "Hide protected operating system files"

With the Lifeboat USB drive still in place, copy all files and folder from Ghost 2 floppy to Lifeboat USB drive. But do not overwriting existing files.
The reason for this operation is that the Norton Ghost PC-DOS does not support large USB-drives.

Go to the AA1.
Insert the Lifeboat USB and start up AA1. Enter BIOS (F2) on startup and select USB HDD as first Boot device.

Now the AA1 should start up with the Ghost program. Select Disk to Image. Select SDD as source and Lifeboat USB as destination and start the image building process. Take a cup of coffee.

When the image is finished, turn off AA1 and swap the Lifeboat USB with your Recovery USB.

Start up AA1 with Recovery USB, and recover the SSD.

When finished, your AA1 should start as normal without the X on black screen. Remember to reset the boot device order in BIOS.
Do not start your e-mail application yet!

Go to the Windows PC.
Plug in the Lifeboat USB drive.
To free up space, move the ghost image files from the USB-drive to the PC hard disk.

Start Norton Ghost Explorer. Explore the ghost image and select the files you want to salvage, like e-mail inbox, address book and documents. Copy the selected files from the image onto the Lifeboat USB. Take a note of the file locations.

Go to the AA1.
Plug in the Lifeboat USB drive and copy your files on to the right locations on the AA1 SSD. Replace any existing files, like e-mail inbox etc.

Voila!