Desktop is gone for the second time.

[martinfromdublin]

My Mandriva desktop has disappeared & this is the 2nd time this has happened, last time I fixed it my inserting the installation disk and letting it 'upgrade' the existing installation but no joy this time around.

I can get to the login screen, select my user-name & enter my password, then the system goes through the normal graphical start-up but instead of my desktop loading a blank black screen with just a cursor-pointer appears.

I could always do a re-install but if anyone else has experienced this and knows what it is, maybe even a quick fix for it, that'd be great.

[rokytnji]

What graphics chip is your box using? I don't run rpm distros so won't be of much help.

Wondering if you can use your xorg.conf from Mandriva live cd to fix also, In Debian based distro I would have suggested dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg command but don't know what Mandriva uses for that command.

Usually after a good working Linux install. First thing I do is backup /boot/grub/menu.list and /etc/X11/xorg.conf for cases like this. Also backup any files I plan on editing later also like /etc/fstab. Good luck with it.

Edit: after googling fedora 14 and xorg. These newer versions don't ship with a etc/X11/xorg.conf. So I am way off base with these newer rpm distros. One has to manually create one in these newer releases.
How to create xorg.conf - FedoraProject

So go with Devils Casper advise and post relevant info.

[devils casper]

You have to re-install Graphics Card driver after every kernel upgrade in every distro. If you have Nvidia or ATI Card, re-install it driver in Safe Mode.

Which Card do you have and which version of Mandriva are you using?

[martinfromdublin]

Hi, graphics card is ATI Radeon 7000 Series (RV100), according to an application I have installed in XP that reads hardware. O.S is Mandriva 2010.2 (the latest version).

How do I re-install the driver in safe mode? I have never done that before.

[martinfromdublin]

I seem to have solved this for now by downloading a newer ISO image from Mandriva's site and doing an 'upgrade' using that (I'm booted into Mandriva as I write and my desktop is as I left it)