NVIDIA 1060ti + Ubuntu 16.04 = Black screen

Question

I installed an Nvdia driver in Ubuntu 16.04. I have Nvdia 1060ti. I don't know how to enter through recovery mode. I tried every solution in this forum but I ended up with a black screen or screen freeze. Can you help me with this issue?

I came to this because Blender was not functioning properly.

Answer 1

I think this might be helpful... I installed Nvidia driver and restarted my computer. I got black screen in loop. The solution is to use other graphic card to boot. Cd or usb is not required for this. My solution is:

1. As computer starts keep on pressing left Shift key.

2. In order to edit grub2 press e.

3. Then go to line starting with linux and enter i915.modeset=0 before quite slash.

   Since my choice was to use the Intel graphic card. I inserted that line. If it was amd/ati, radeon.modeset=0 could work. In some computer simply inserting nomodeset may work.

4. Press Ctrl+x to reboot.

5. Then wait for a while... After screen freezes press Ctrl+Alt+F1

6. It asks for username and password. Enter them.

7. Then terminal appears. Uninstall NVdia drivers using the command:

    sudo apt-get purge nvidia*
   

8. Then type reboot... then your Ubuntu will boot...

This solution is just to enter the OS. Now follow proper method to install NVidia driver for better graphics.

Answer 2

One possible way (that I used recently) to recover from wrong video driver and black screen is to use the option Try Ubuntu from an installation CD/USB. Then mount your root file system and use chroot to work against it instead of the live Ubuntu in RAM, and at this point purge the driver.

1. Boot from Ubuntu installation media and choice Try Ubuntu.

2. Find which is the partition where Ubuntu is installed (if it is LVM you should use /dev/<volume group>/<volume name>). Let's assume it is /dev/sda1 for the example.

3. Open new terminal window and mount this partition to the directory /mnt:

   sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
   

4. Then use mount to --bind: /dev to /mnt/dev, /proc to /mnt/proc and /sys to /mnt/sys:

   for f in dev proc sys ; do mount --bind /$f /mnt/$f ; done
   

5. Then change the root directory:

   sudo chroot /mnt
   

6. At this pint purge the NVidia driver:

   sudo apt remove --purge nvidia*
   

7. Exit from the chroot, unmount and reboot the system:

   exit
   sudo umount /mnt/sys
   sudo umount /mnt/proc
   sudo umount /mnt/dev
   sudo umount /mnt
   sudo systemctl reboot
   

References:

• Ubuntu - Blinking cursor and cannot start after Nvidia driver upgrade (this is the main source of the current answer).

• Is there an easier way to chroot than bind-mounting?