I switched on my notebook after a week not using and when my ubuntu 11.04 OS boots I get my homescreen with the little white circle on screen which would normally convert to the mouse/touchpad pointer, but it doesnt . So I am stuck and can't move any further , I have re booted many times but no luck. Is there any way to solve this other than a re install? Appreciate some help . Thanks

Have you tried booting into recovery mode? If so, what happens?

(To enter recovery mode, press the Esc key just after the boot loader has done its work. Either that or hold down the Enter key as the machine boots.)

You may also find that you have older kernels still installed. Might be worth giving one of them a try.

Can you tell me what line I open on recovery mode? I have these options.

Resume

Clean

dpkg repair broken packages

failsafex run in failsafe graphic mode

fsck reboot into file system check

grub update grub bootloader

netroot- drop to rootshell prompt with networking

root- drop to rootshell prompt

what do I select and do next , Thanks

You can choose to repair broken packages first. That's the first thing I usually do whenever I run into a problem, and if that doesn't work, you can drop to rooshell prompt and run; sudo apt-get update.

You can also try one of the old kernels as has been pointed out above.