installation - Blank screen with blinking cursor after install

I find that sometimes when I install Ubuntu 11, I get a blank screen with a blinking cursor... what's wrong?

Following this answer

• Press shift during boot


• e to edit entry (quiet splash to text)


• F10 to boot


• got black screen without cursor

Then tried from another answer

• replace quiet splash to xforcevesa (what does this do?)



• got same blank screen without cursor

Then I tried boot into recovery, then update GRUB entries. That works, but when I restart, I'm back to square one.

Try editing the boot entry and placing "nomodeset" (without the quotes) as an option.