Broken dell laptop screen, need help hooking up to external monitor!

[Filthy_dubs]

Hi there, So i have a dell laptop running windows 7 with a spiderwebbed broken screen, i can barely see in the corner but it does still boot up to windows. I have tried hooking up an external monitor with an hdmi but unfortunately cant get the screen to switch over. I have tried rebooting and pressing each of the "F" and fn + "F" keys. Any other options here? Maybe try a different monitor with a hdmi/vga adapter? Or am i going to have to unhook the lcd screen ribbon?
Any help will be greatly appreciated!
Thanks

 

[BFG-9000]

Usually on a Dell Display Selection is Fn+F8 but you may have a laptop where the Fn key doesn't work without Quickset. In that case you'd have to either install Quickset (using Remote Desktop Connection just as if it were headless), or unhooking the ribbon as you say would make any connected external monitor into the primary.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

You're going to have to get the screen replaced, that's the only sensible course of action.