Thinkpads Forum

I've got an odd problem here - Last night, my X30 (which is running XP Pro) was running in dual monitor mode - second monitor plugged in and used as an extension. Long story short, the laptop screen was smashed to the point of unreadability while it was running. No problem, I thought, and removed the screen with the plan of using my second monitor as the primary until I can find a replacement...

Problem, though - The thinkpad boots up and recognizes that no screen is there, and uses my second monitor for the primary. Windows bootup screen displays on the second monitor as if it was a primary, but once it gets to the login screen it "remembers" that it was in extended mode, putting my desktop on the nonexistant screen and showing the extended background on my second monitor. Without being able to see what I'm doing I can't move any windows into the second monitor. I tried booting into safe mode, which seemed to "forget" the extended setting, but only one monitor shows up in the settings giving me no option to disable the second.

...Is there any windows shortcut to disable the extended settings or switch which monitor is the "primary," select and move windows blindly, or something I'm not seeing in safe mode? And before anyone suggests it, Fn+F7 does nothing when the display is extended.

There is a BIOS setting for selecting the "Boot Display Device". Reboot (or power on) > Press F1 at boot splash screen > Config > Display > Boot Display Device > CRT. See if that will work.

I believe I read your post a bit hasty last night. I was going to suggest this morning that you disconnect the laptop display, but I read that you already did that. I believe one of the two options below should work.

If you can log in OK and do see a background, then right-click on the desktop and choose Properties > Advanced > ... to get to the option to not extend the desktop. Sorry I am not in XP atm to give the exact menu structure.

Alternatively, uninstall your Display adapter driver in Device Manager, and when you reboot, Windows should reinstall the driver with the default settings. If Windows only installs the VGA driver, you can still reinstall your dedicated graphics driver after you get back to your desktop, but I think XP will reinstall your dedicated driver automatically on reboot, and this won't be necessary.