blank display rather than menu

[dave]

I made a grub boot cd using the instructions in the gnu grub manual. 
when it makes the iso it changes the file names to 8 letter names so 
splash.xpm.gz becomes splash_x.gz argh. and menu.lst~ becomes menu0000.lst
When it boots it will boot to the default xp partition or if you hit a 
key it will allow you to pick a menu item by arrow keys. But there is no 
display. You see only an under bar cursor in the upper left of the 
screen. Is the screen blank because the splash image fails? What video 
mode is assumed on a vga system?
grub ver with linspire 5.0.59 i believe.
menu.lst =



# this file is edited, the
# system will stop modifying it.  To allow the system to resume
# management of this file, remove it and run /sbin/jiffyboot

default=3
timeout=12
color cyan/green magenta/green
splashimage=splash.xpm.gz

title Lins 5.0.59 on /dev/hdb2
root (hd1,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.10  root=/dev/hdb2 rootdev=0x0342  
ramdisk=32000 vga=0x311 splash=silent video=vesafb:nomtrr 
video=vesafb:nomtrr Diagnostics jiffymount=noatime 
resume2=swap:/dev/hdb2:address@hidden
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.10.gz
# (Boot priority: 102, mounted at /)

title Redet
root (hd1,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.10  root=/dev/hdb2 rootdev=0x0342  
ramdisk=32000 noresume2 redetect video=vesafb:nomtrr video=vesafb:nomtrr 
Diagnostics jiffymount=noatime resume2=swap:/dev/hdb2:address@hidden
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.10.gz
# (Boot priority: 102, mounted at /)

title Diagnos
root (hd1,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.10  root=/dev/hdb2 rootdev=0x0342  
ramdisk=32000 noresume2 single splash=0 Diagnostics video=vesafb:nomtrr 
video=vesafb:nomtrr Diagnostics jiffymount=noatime 
resume2=swap:/dev/hdb2:address@hidden
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.10.gz
# (Boot priority: 102, mounted at /)

title MS Windows® X-PU on /dev/hda1
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1