Laptop's screen is shattered, need BIOS menu tree

November 24, 2011 4:58 PM

I have an ASUS G60V laptop. My lcd screen is shattered, and now I need to use a repair CD. Laptop won't boot into external monitor in repair mode, so I can't see the screen. Any ASUS owners be willing to walk me through the BIOS menu steps to see if I can get my laptop to connect to the external?

The exact specs for my laptop are at this newegg page.

I've spent the past two hours perusing BIOS menu screenshots online, trying to find a set that matches what I can see on my laptop screen. (Laptop's screen is 16 inches, and 14 inches of it is shattered. There's a vertical 1-2 inch sliver on the right where I can see the far edge of what should be on my display.) But I've had no luck finding a match. If a good samaritan could help me, I'd be SO grateful. I'm out of work, and can't afford a repair bill. Thanks!

My other options, by the way, for those who ask:
1) repair the screen. I can't afford to do this.
2) try to use a repair cd blindly, which scares me more than adjusting bios settings blindly. because I just bought this laptop, and hadn't gotten around to burning a cd like I should have.
3) use a linux bootable OS CD to recover my files, recover my files, wipe the hard drive somehow. which will be hours and hours of troubleshooting fun.

Thus, I'd rather try the BIOS attempt first.

posted by siddhartha_in_costume to computers & internet (2 answers total)

You could also pull the hard drive out and connect it with a USB-to-IDE connector to another computer, transfer your files, then wipe the drive. These connectors are fairly cheap. If you don't have another computer you could probably talk to a local computer shop about using theirs, or a library.
posted by odinsdream at 5:18 PM on November 24, 2011

I'm not sure from your question what your exactly goal is.

If you're trying to get an external monitor working, have you tried holding the Function button (marked Fn, on the left between Ctrl and Windows key) and hitting F8 a few times? That should toggle it through screen/external/both display modes.

If you goal is to recover files from it I would just remove the hard drive and attach it to another computer. You most likely won't need an adapter as they probably both use a SATA interface.
posted by Edogy at 5:32 AM on November 25, 2011