My laptop fell off the couch and landed on a back corner of the laptop. Immediately checked and had boot up sounds but no display. Was told to try external monitor. Got the vaio logo and the blinking cursor. Gave up. Tried again and got the dos looking restart and troubleshooting message with white blips at bottom of external monitor screen. Hit F8. Chose the delete restoration option. EXTERNAL monitor now displays Windows Welcome SCReen and then goes black. Ready to give up when laptop itself chimes Windows Welcome chime. No display though. Then I look closer and there are my icons and then superimposed over them is the stupid windows messenger ****. Screen is so dark I can barely see them and can't see cursor at all. Hit ''windows'' button and choose to properly shut down. How do I get all of this to display on my external monitor so that I can actually see it long enough to copy selected items that haven't been backed up yet? I have one week's worth of email and work that hasn't been backed up and would love to retrieve it. Computer is 6 yrs old so not interested in repairing. Just in getting display to STAY open on external monitor.

Hi,

This sounds like a resolution problem.

Can you move the windows messenger out of the way so you are looking at the Desktop screen (usual screen which has icons on it which is the first thing which appears after it has gone past the welcome screen)

On the desktop screen right click on a clear bit of space and try and change the resolution.

Failing this if you have an alternate monitor or LCD TV with VGA monitor input try use your TV and by outputting to your TV you will probably have enough of the screen displayed to copy what you need.

If all of the above fails. Best thing to do is to take your laptop Hard Disk Drive out of the computer and slave it into another computer or laptop to copy your documents / pictures etc as you clearly stated your not interested in reparing it. If your not sure how to do this then please come back to me

Hi lilypug,

if you still can see the desktop (or a bit of it), right-click onto the background picture, goto properties, settings then, choose the screen option here and if both of the internal and external monitor were properly recognized by windows u should be able to choose and activate the external monitor here!
perhaps increasing the Hertz rate of the graphic adaptor(see the same menu, graphic adaptor, list of all modes) may add to your comfort when using an old, non-tft or lcd monitor.

If this worked out you will be able to use the laptop as a stationary device from now on.

Good luck