I used to have this problem where all tty1, tty2, tty3, tty4, tty5, tty6 each correspond to Ctl+Alt+F1 ... to Ctl+Alt+F6, they all showed blank screen. I could only access Ctl+Alt+F7 which is my x-windows/gnome GUI.
Recently I had a fresh install of my Debian testing(squeeze). And today while troubleshooting for my hylafax not sending fax, I come across
/etc/inittab
in which it mentioned
# /sbin/getty invocations for the runlevels.
#
# The "id" field MUST be the same as the last
# characters of the device (after "tty").
#
# Format:
# <id>:<runlevels>:<action>:<process>
#
# Note that on most Debian systems tty7 is used by the X Window System,
# so if you want to add more getty's go ahead but skip tty7 if you run X.
#
1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty1
2:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty2
3:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty3
4:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty4
5:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty5
6:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty6
I believe this is where it lays the key to fixing the problem. This is my 2 cents.
