Laptop with broken screen won't connect to external monitor.

[Harmony_1]

I think my baby stepped on the corner of my laptop screen (only thing I can think of) so now it's all funky when it starts up and you can't see anything. So my husband set it up with an external monitor and all you can see is my wallpaper and the cursor. There are no desktop icons and I can't see or access the start menu. What might this be? How can I fix it?

 

[raisonjohn]

It might be that the screen is extended from your laptop to your monitor (Display 1 is your laptop where all the icons are; Display 2 is your monitor where the desktop is extended).

Try to check your laptop's function button as there should be a Display Output options there. You can toggle between, Extended display (which you might be in that situation now), Laptop Display only, Monitor Display only, or Both Monitor/Laptop Display the Same. You try to cycle through and you want to hit the last 2 options which will show your desktop with the icons on your monitor screen.

Note sure what your laptop is but in my Toshiba laptop, it's Fn + F5.

 

[USAFRet]

Which OS is this? As said above, it almost certainly on "Extend", rather than mirror.

Right click on the desktop you can see, and select "Screen resolution". From there, you should be able to swap which screen is which, and/or mirror them.