I've installed yesterday Ubuntu 12.10 32-bit version (as recommended) on my laptop. It was a fresh install, alongside Windows XP. On grub, after choosing normal boot on ubuntu, it starts loading things, but before starting the Ubuntu loading screen (with the dots) it stops flashing HDD activity led, and hangs there, and I need to hard shutdown the laptop. However, if I choose recovery mode on grub, and then choose Normal Boot on the options screen, it starts, but it doesn't allow to choose the native screen resolution (1440x900).

How can I solve the problem on normal boot? How can I grab more information about the reason it hangs? I thought that starting in recovery mode it showed the reason, but it starts and doesn't hang, so I can't extract any information about the issue.

Can you help me?

Thank you!