Home » Questions » Computers [ Ask a new question ]

Unattended Vista without Monitor

Unattended Vista without Monitor

I have a laptop with a busted monitor (I can only see the leftmost inch of the screen). I need to reinstall Vista on this computer. However, the external monitor is a function of the video card drivers; it is not hardware.

Asked by: Guest | Views: 184
Total answers/comments: 2
Guest [Entry]

"Here is another thing to try while you wait for a better solution. Since you stated you have another computer I am assuming this is possible.

Download VirtualBox
Install it on your Desktop computer
Create a new Virtual Machine
Create an ISO of your Vista installation media
Mount the ISO inside the virtual machine and insert the Vista disc into the laptop
Start up both the Laptop and the Virtual Machine

Since you are going through the same setup on both machines you can see on the virtual machine what the current step is and how many times you need to click tab for instance to get to certain option. The virtual machine will give you an idea of what is on the screen of the laptop. You will be able to tell when the laptop is waiting for input as there will be no Hard Drive activity and hopefully the little bit of the screen that you can see will give you more hints. After install you will also be able to use the Vista virtual machine to figure out what commands and keys have to be pressed to enable remote desktop on the laptop. That way after installation you will be able to control the laptop through the network.

After you are done you can just delete the virtual machine and even get rid of VirtualBox if you don't see yourself using it in the future. Also when you are installing on the virtual machine make sure that you don't allow it to have a network adapter. That way you can type in the product key and it won't count as being used as it will never verify it with Microsoft."
Guest [Entry]

"Are you 100% sure about the external monitor being a feature of a driver - I have not personally seen this in a good few years. You can usually force the external monitor on by pressing FN/Function+F? where ? is a picture of a monitor on a F key... Just keep pressing it as sometimes you need to press it 3 or 4 times to cycle.

Apart from that, I would've done everything you have said... if your image was a generic one, there shouldn't have been a problem where as if it was setup for the other machine, you may need to do a sysprep / generalise to clear the hardware profiles.

Next, if it is a BSOD restart, you may want to use Bluescreenview and target the minidump / crash log files on the other hard drive as this can help you diagnose the problem.

Anyway, option 2 is what I would've chosen, if it isn't working (and you are following my advise or something similar) it must be another error, if it is a standard screen, you may just want to get a replacement as they are not that expensive and quite easy to fit."