It certainly sounds like X isn't starting, but I'm at a loss as to why, or why vga=normal would have any effect at all if X isn't starting. You did type just failsafe at the boot prompt, didn't you. and not knoppix failsafe? It still sounds like a cheat code issue and I would again suggest trying to boot in expert mode and take good notes on how you answer the questions and see if you can't get into the GUI.