fixed, no thanks to HP

[Ralph Pichie]

I managed to get a gui running again by switching the display manager
from gdm to kdm. I'll have to call HP and get through to somebody
competent about the hardware problem.

HP tech support was entirely clueless, insisting I should use their
recovery tool to restore the original configuration, and that I could
get all my files, even the ones in my encrypted /home on a Linux
partition, from my 'C' drive....