I totally ruined my Ubuntu 10.10 Desktop x64 installation today. I've never been able to hibernate or suspend (not with my laptop, server or htpc), not even through this guide. So I read a post here on askubuntu.com that said that the proprietary drivers may be in the way for it to work.

Therefore I removed my ATI-drivers, rebooted, then tried to hibernate the system. I got some error about "blk_something_something didn't work, resubmitting1". So I turned off the computer and then tried booting up. I see the ubuntu splash but after that I'm greeted with this screen:

The upper dot is the mouse pointer since I can move it with the mouse (I have ubuntu set to login automatically). I don't know how this happened.

What can I do to fix this? I'm getting seriously irritated over how buggy ubuntu is, why doesn't even suspend/hibernate work (remember that I have 3 different systems where it fails)?

So what is the next step? I want to get into cli mode and reinstall the driver but since I'm relatively new to ubuntu I don't know how to get into a terminal without logging in first. And if I press shift during boot I can't get into grub either and try something from there.

Please come with all suggestions you can think of!

Thank you very much!

edit: Can I use ubuntu on a usb to insert the driver I need - if that is the problem?