Accidentally set X resolution too high - cannot boot into X

[amorpheus]

my problem is i selected a high resolution and its too high and when i boot into redhat its a black screen and theres a window flying around saying no video or something like that.... please HELP!!

[Jata]

Does it dump you back into the command line or just leave a crapped up screen?

[ph34r]

At the lilo prompt, type "linux 3" and hit enter. You will boot to console only mode. Then you can reconfigure X.

[bwilliam79]

Can you not CTRL+ALT+F(1-6) to change to a different console? I would think that would get your video back without having to reboot.

[o0zi]

Once you're in the console (look at the above posts), type xf86config to reconfigure your monitor, or look inside the /etc/X11/XF86Config file. Besides typing "linux 3" in LILO, you can press Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to get out of X.

If you don't know how to use any console editors, I'd suggest nano, as it is very easy to use and has no learning curve.

[bandwidth_pig]

If it were me, once in the console, I would just edit XF86Config with VI and comment out the resolutions you don't want with #. I don't know if you familar with VI or not, but it's not too hard to use if you keep it simple. For example:

#vi /etc/X11/XF86Config
(vi opens up the file)

Then scroll down to:

# ************************************************** ********************
# Screen sections
# ************************************************** ********************

# Any number of screen sections may be present. Each describes
# the configuration of a single screen. A single specific screen section
# may be specified from the X server command line with the "-screen"
# option.
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen 1"
Device "NVIDIA GeForce"
Monitor "My Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24

Subsection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection
Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
ViewPort 0 0

Down where you see Modes under 8 bit, 16 bit and so on you have your resolutions "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600". All you have do is remove the part that you don't want. So arrow over to the offending resolution and hit "d" and then your space bar. Do this once for each number you want deleted (delete the quotes around the number too). Don't get too happy hitting that d key. Careful. One at a time or you will delete the whole line. Then once done hit escape and then :
once you hit : then just type wq and hit enter. wq is "write then quit" in which case you will have saved your changes and you should be good to go. If you make a mistake, hit : again and then type q! to quit without saving changes in which case you can just reopen the file and try again.

[dysharmonic]

Ctrl + Alt + (+) or (-)