My mate disabled his graphics card...

commited

My mate disabled his graphics card on his Insprion 6000 LAPTOP.. Dont ask me why he did this. It's pretty funny really, he's had it 3days...

Anyway, I've tried all manner of F8 options & lots of tabbing and stuff within windows to change it but no luck.. any ideas?

I suppose this gives him a chance to get rid of all the dell crap with a fresh install (no disks came with the laptop apparently ), but is there any easier solution? His final year project is on the machine....

Hobbes

Can you get into safe mode? If so just delete the device from the list and it will find it again.

failing that get a cheap gfx card and put replace temporary to fix it.

CiaranC

Heh, ask "your mate" if hes running XP, if so remote access in and change the hw settings. Or stick in a different card

commited

It isnt me

We cant get into safe mode, as I said - I tried all the F8 menu options

Should have mentioned that the Inspiron 6000 is a laptop, and I'm not opening it up and sticking in cards and stuff. Dont want to invalidate the warranty.

Surely you have to allow remote access on the machines before we can access it remotely?

We've tried external monitor etc.

Wolverine_1999

If you want to recover the data on the HDD, just take it out and get a ide convertor for a normal desktop connection. Sounds like the graphics card is screwed... Are you getting any picture on the tft?

Oh wait, if you can access the bios...then obviously something must be coming up..

JackieChan

Perhaps a call to Dell support would be in order.

commited

Dont want to open up the laptop - will invalidate the warranty.

The graphics card isnt screwed, he just simply "disabled" it in device manager. There really should be some safeguard against idiots

Karoma

Eh,if that was the case wouldn't it just revert to VGA at worst?
Can you see the BIOS info?

Attach a monitor..? And are you sure there isn't a button to switch display to external that he might have also pressed on the keyboard..?

commited

I've tried the CRT/LCD display button - first thing i tried infact.

Can access bios - no options would help.

It didnt revert to VGA mode - the screen displays until the XP logo..

roamer

Strange that you cant get into safe mode, this would load vga drivers and work off onboard video on your motherboard.

All you can do now is get an XP disk to boot off. I have a dell laptop myself, they don't send you out the disks with the computer but if you ring them they will send it out straight away or you might know somebody with an XP disk if you don't feel like waiting.

When you get the disk, boot and uninstall the card, when you boot windows again it will detect your new hardware.

Wolverine_1999

hmm, it sounds like it's definately some driver loading the graphics card going into windows.

Sounds like a format solution to me... god knows what your friend is after doing!

commited

Apparently he disabled the VGA adapter as well, the tool.

Karoma

Surely you can get to the command prompt..?
Try safe mode with command prompt and type %systemroot%\System32\restore\rstrui.exe ...
Failing that: try a bootdisk (Floppy or a CD) (and stary copying stuff to pendrive or floppy)



But,as you have said you tried "all F8 options" without success... XP disc and Repair,and hammer, TBH.

roamer

Karoma wrote:

Surely you can get to the command prompt..?
Try safe mode with command prompt and type %systemroot%\System32\restore\rstrui.exe ...
Failing that: try a bootdisk (Floppy or a CD) (and stary copying stuff to pendrive or floppy)



But,as you have said you tried "all F8 options" without success... XP disc and Repair,and hammer, TBH.

This is probably Windows XP so theres no command prompt at startup

commited

It's XP - no real command prompt. It's screwed - reinstall is the only option for that.

Karoma

there's still a command prompt (not DOS prompt).. but I had in mind more an old Windows bootdisk..
Failing that: Knoppix,or another LiveCD?
A Repair should do the trick - don't jump straight to a recovery.

commited

He doesnt have the disks, and doesnt want to wait for the dell disks..
I have an ubuntu live cd which I might try, or might try a dual boot type yoke.

He doesnt have a floppy drive either

Karoma

and older Windows CD?
Ubuntu is his way forward:)

commited

No cd for his OS - but cd's for other Os's

Dooom

commited wrote:

My mate disabled his graphics card

ROFL. Sorry, couldn't stop laughing at that bit. Along the lines of "I broke the house".

Ahem. Apolgies for my lack of on-topic comment, can't think of anything.

zAbbo

You might to enable the F-LOCK before you mash the F8 button.

rofl @ reinstall/format comments

commited

I laughed at him when he told me what he'd done - it's quite tragic really.

bazH - whats so funny about the reinstall/format comments?

as an aside - dont dell set aside a bit of the hard disk for a disk image?

zAbbo

The problem is that you can't access the F8 menu.

format/reinstall is the newb option

Hold down Fn+F8 to boot to safe mode, from there you should be able to fixup the problem

Capt'n Midnight

Was he in the BIOS by any chance ?

F12 may give some boot options - but nothing to do with windows.

On Win95 there was a *DisplayFallback=1 line , but academic since the HDD is almost certainly NTFS you can only modify / change files from a working copy of Windows.

F8 should work !

if you have a floppy drive you could use NTFSDOS to copy the boot.ini ntdetect.com and ntldr from the C: drive. Then format a floppy and copy the files to it - edit the boot.ini so it has VGA in the windows line ( search ) and try to boot from it.

the_syco

Tell him to press the "Delete" key (below the "Insert" key, and to the left of the "End" key), and this should go into BIOS. You should be able to ensure its enabled then.

Apart from that, try pressing F5 for safe mode. I think it only works for HP computers, but try it anyhoo's.

Hobbes

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

On Win95 there was a *DisplayFallback=1 line , but academic since the HDD is almost certainly NTFS you can only modify / change files from a working copy of Windows.

you could go into command prompt mode and do it that way. The video driver shouldn't kick in until the GFX comes online.

commited

bazH wrote:

The problem is that you can't access the F8 menu.

format/reinstall is the newb option

Hold down Fn+F8 to boot to safe mode, from there you should be able to fixup the problem

Would you try reading the post before jumping to conclusions about "n00bs"

As I said, safe mode doesnt work.
ALL F8 OPTIONS HAVE BEEN TRIED WITH NO RESULTS I.E - safe mode, vga etc.


As for the other replies - he didnt touch bios.
Del isnt bios F2 is.
I was going to try the F12 thing, is that where dell keep the backup image - surely that'll just lose him everything?
I'm currently in the recovery console - any ideas on what to type.

jor el

I have a question (or is it two?). How and why did he decide he needed to dissable the graphics card? This is just too bizare.

Anyway, since all boot options have failed, what I would do is this. Get a Win XP disc and boot from that. Use the installatin Key that should be printed on the Laptop somewhere, that way it's all nice and legal. Choose install and overwrite the existing installation. Do not format the disc, leave it as is. This will install a fresh copy of Windows but he won't loose any information from the disk. All should be well, except you'll probably need to go hunting for drivers for the modem/soundcard/graphics after the install.

If I was really felt like teaching him a lesson, and I didn't like him much, I'd tell him there was no way to fix the problem and then format his disk. That would teach him not to do stupid things like that. Of course, you wouldn't do that

irlrobins

Have u tried contacting Dell?

And did u try a linux Live CD to see if that booted up at all?

If Dell are not much help then what I'd do is use knoppix to back up any files he needs then format and reinstall.

This guide is v good in explaining how to do this.

commited

Linux Live CD didnt want to work - screen was flash and couldnt read any text.

jor_el,
He did it because the text seemed fuzzy or something and thought that disabling and re enabling would fix it

We dont have an XP home disk to overwrite, only XP Pro. Which obviously isnt legal

I'm not gonna mess about with it for much longer - dell can sort it out if I cant get the recovery console to work.

commited

Downloading knoppix now..

If it doesnt work - are we completely stuffed?

Opening up the laptop isnt an option...

roamer

commited wrote:

Downloading knoppix now..

If it doesnt work - are we completely stuffed?

Opening up the laptop isnt an option...

You first posted about this yesterday. I hope you rang dell anyways yesterday to arrange that XP disk. AFAIK, its next day delivery. You could have it by now!

commited

I didnt tell him not to ring dell, he just didnt - isnt up to me

Surely that'll require a reformat anyway....

Wolverine_1999

He probably thought that the text was "Fuzzy" because he was using the incorrect resolution and not native resolution of the TFT. Strange that the system doesn't show anything now though.

If I was there I could fix it!!!

Other than that, good luck

roamer

Wolverine_1999 wrote:

Sounds like a format solution to me... god knows what your friend is after doing!

Wolverine_1999 wrote:

If I was there I could fix it!!!

I bet you could. Is this the answer to all your problems?

Sleipnir

just get a PCI card and use that while you re-enable the other card.

roamer

Sleipnir wrote:

just get a PCI card and use that while you re-enable the other card.

Its a laptop and he doesn't want to open it.

irlrobins

Did you try an external video card?

Karoma

commited wrote:

I didnt tell him not to ring dell, he just didnt - isnt up to me

Surely that'll require a reformat anyway....

*shrug* I'm not familiar with Dell recovery discs-but there's a chance he could do a Repair..


@IRL: What external video card would you recommend?

irlrobins

Karoma wrote:

@IRL: What external video card would you recommend?

This one?

gamer

go to bootdisk.com..download win98se boot disk onto a floppy,u get zip file ,unzip it to floppy,put disk in drive THEN switch on pc ,bootmenu comes up , it makes a virtual ramdisk which contains basic dos files fdisk etc,and brings u to dos prompt mode ,bypasses xp loading,dos prompt comes up...also try to get into bios mode and enable vga onboard video too.this should work on any pc xp or win9..xx .ive used it many times to install oses format drives etc ,it also has a universal cdrom drive built in .sumtimes its hard to install an os cos hd has no drivers for cdrom acess on it.can u use an external crt ?

Capt'n Midnight

Trouble-Shooting Etch-A-Sketch Problems...

Q: My Etch-A-Sketch has a distorted display. What should I do?
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: My Etch-A-Sketch has these funny little lines all over the screen.
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I turn my Etch-A-Sketch off?
A: Pick it up and shake it. Set it down.

Q: My Etch-A-Sketch has lines that prevent me from doing my art project.
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I delete a document from my Etch-A-Sketch?
A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I keep from losing my Etch-A-Sketch document?
A: Stop shaking it.

SickBoy

irlrobins wrote:

This one?

That's priceless! Love it!!!

commited

Wolverine_1999 wrote:

He probably thought that the text was "Fuzzy" because he was using the incorrect resolution and not native resolution of the TFT. Strange that the system doesn't show anything now though.

If I was there I could fix it!!!

Other than that, good luck

It was "fuzzy" because he hadnt got the appearance settings adjusted properly.
it doesnt show anything because he went on to disable the VGA driver also.

If you were here, you could do no better than me mate

commited

gamer wrote:

go to bootdisk.com..download win98se boot disk onto a floppy,u get zip file ,unzip it to floppy,put disk in drive THEN switch on pc ,bootmenu comes up , it makes a virtual ramdisk which contains basic dos files fdisk etc,and brings u to dos prompt mode ,bypasses xp loading,dos prompt comes up...also try to get into bios mode and enable vga onboard video too.this should work on any pc xp or win9..xx .ive used it many times to install oses format drives etc ,it also has a universal cdrom drive built in .sumtimes its hard to install an os cos hd has no drivers for cdrom acess on it.can u use an external crt ?

First of all - no floppy drive
Second of all - tried bios & dos stuff, no good.
Dont need to do the Win 95/98 install os thing (ive done it in the past years ago) because there is no problem with installing a new OS from CD.
As said about 20 times - external CRT doesnt work :P


Anyway - I got the necessary files off, and its now running XP fully optimised and all fine and dandy