Solved! Laptop broken lcd and external monitor

[John728]

Hello, I found a laptop in the dumpster at my apt that had a broken screen. I figured I'd give it a shot and brought it home. Got it started up and it worked minus the screen of course. Hooked it up via HDMI to an external monitor. It is windows 8.1 and is an HP. I've been trying different methods of bios and command prompt etc.

Now the other problem is that when the computer boots up, it only displays the image on the cracked LCD until it begins the spiral loading symbol and the finally the lock screen. So accessing the bios or command prompt from there is unless during boot up. So I did the hold shift & restart method to gain access to the troubleshooting menu via the lock screen. The image remains on the second screen while navigating those menus until you actually make a selection like use a device, reset your PC, launch command prompt etc. After that the system reverts to the broken LCD only and signal is lost to the secondary.

What I need to know is, is there a way to keep the secondary active somehow? Will I have to replace the lcd? Could I disconnect the LCD from the laptop and the laptop only recognize the external display?

Any help or insight is greatly appreciated. I also have another laptop and am not sure if that could aid in a remote PC kinda. Thanks in advance.

 

[schwartzasher]

I had the same issue with an old hp computer. Except i just wanted to take out the screen. Any laptop that you do this to will have the same effect. When you unplug the laptop screen from the motherboard, it will only show on the external monitor as that is the default and only monitor. If you have an internal monitor that becomes the default again. if you only have external monitors then it will show on the external monitor