Comment 31 for bug 949130

I raised a bug which I think is a duplicate of this bug. Mine is #993405 and is now marked as a duplicate of this bug.
In my machine (details at my bug entry) the display got impossible and I was considering a reinstall, but I then remembered I had used nomodeset successfully on other old machines.

I used nomodeset and it worked! :-)

This is in a machine in which the 12.04 desktop 32 bit live cd worked fine! even apparently using 3D also. However, after install, I think 3D was no longer available, and although the default high resolution of the display worked ok, the user wanted a lower res (!) and it was after choosing lower res that the display really screwed up, and there was no going back (doh!)
At least I could not find a way.
But use of nomodeset in the boot string (grub menu visible, press e, and add nomodeset in appropriate place)
and then making the change permanent /etc/default/grub (add nomodeset appropriately, and then update-grub)
all worked.
So although for me this bug was a complete show stopper, the nomodeset workaround means I now have no more problem.