Broken laptop screen. Cannot see what I'm doing.

[Limpette]

Hey everyone,

First off I'm not entirely sure where this thread should go, but I'd think this was my best bet. So apologies if I got it wrong.

Anyway.

I have an old laptop with a broken screen. I do not intend to fix the screen just use an external monitor.

However I need to re-install windows and Diagnose a few ram problems. And since I cannot see anything, I don't know where to go from here...

I would have no problem booting into windows, as I would be able to use the funtion keys to use the external monitor.

. However I need to use the external monitor from the boot screen + BIOS.

I'll be putting a brand new HDD. So I cant boot into windows, partition and install an os on the other partition.

Anyone have any Ideas?

Much thanks,

Limpette

 

[Limpette]

Anyone?

 

[shadamus]

You may be able to disconnect the screen ribbon cable from your laptop's motherboard, and see if it will detect that the monitor isn't plugged in there, and switch to the external port automatically (even at boot/bios time). You can probably google around for instructions on replacing the screen for your model of laptop and find some nice illustrated (or even video) instructions on how to get the monitor disconnected.

If that doesn't work, it gets social...

Do you know anyone with the same model of laptop -- that would let you borrow it and use a screw-driver on it?

If so, you could swap your harddrive into their laptop, get a baseline windows install going, then swap the drive back into your laptop and finish setting it up there.

Good luck.