Update from openSuse 11.2 to 11.4 Display Problem Using zypper Tool

I used the zypper dup tool to upgrade my HP Pavilion dv6000 laptop and my display is now broken into columns and partially obscured. I can barely see anything on it.

When I ran zypper it stopped about half way and locked up. I then ran it again to completion. At boot, GRUB gives me my startup options as before and is clearly readable with good resolution. When I select openSuse to start it, the screen goes blank for a few seconds and then comes back with the screen problems. The problem continues all the way into KDE. I have approximately four columns displayed but I can barely see anything. Most of the lower half of what should be displayed is obscured so I cannot load any applications. If I right click, I can make out the dialog box and select the run command. From there I reran the zypper command using the ‘zypper up rpm’ option and it says “nothing to do” and the “highest update version is already installed.”

The display problem also exists if I use the failsafe boot option. I remember having to download nVidia driver last year to get a better resolution, but 11.2 (64 bit) worked great until the repositories stopped working and I no longer was able to load software. Now I can’t use the computer to download and burn a DVD version of 11.4. Again, I do seem to be able to use the terminal, so I could presumably fix something with it if I had the right commands and I do seem to have access to the repositories.

I’m not sure if upgrading to 11.4 from 11.2 is a viable/recommended option, an awful lot of changes happened between 11.2 > 11.3 > 11.4

I suspect you would have had more luck upgrading to 11.3 first and then moving onto 11.4, but being honest it’s probably easier (and maybe cleaner) to just do a fresh install of 11.4 than to go through all that, but your current situation seems to make it difficult for you to download the iso now

Have you tried using the console version of Yast to install the nvidia driver?

Sounds more like a video driver issue. The nouveau divers dont work for all cards nvidia equally. (i am assuming you have a nvidia card)
if you can log into the shell as root then (with an alt-f2) then fire up the ncurses version of yast and make sure the nvidia repository is added, and install the appropriate nvidia driver for your card is added. then restart your machine.