I have the exact same issue...Dell Inspiron 6000
I have searched all the forums and have not made much progress.
I entered the string "vga=ask" and if you add this, you will be prompted for a list of display modes....if you combine that with nomodeset vga=ask, I thought I was making progress because the screen changes and goes to a flashing dash but nothing happens after that....my gut feel is that it is related to display drivers.