On Friday 14 February 2014 06:28:23 you wrote:
> said Michael Howard:
> | > in december i built a new machine, which has nvidia graphics
> | > instead of the previous ATI. moving the drives over went smoothly
> | > enough, but booting is peculiar: if i just boot from the grub2
> | > screen, it goes along for a bit and then locks solid before
> | > getting fully booted. if, however, i choose to boot in repair
> | > mode, which oddly goes into framebuffer and then produces a
> | > normal text-based screen of choices and select "boot normally,"
> | > it boots . . . normally.
> |
> | You don't say what OS or Version but I would take a look at the
> | grub command line to she exactly how it's booting. It sounds like
> | the original command line from your previous install. It needs
> | tweaking by the sounds of things.
>
> a debian-derivative -- ubuntu or kubuntu, don't remember which --
> 12.04 LTS, 64-bit.
>
> and yes, i agree it needs tweaking -- just don't know the tweaks. the
> whole frame buffer thing is a little nutty to me. could have dealt
> with it in lilo, but i do not know grub or grub2 at all well.

investigate rebuilding your initrd.img, it may have the wrong video 
drivers.

-- 
Peace,

Greg