Laptop tragedy

[darkfyre_muse]

Help oh gurus of the technical world!
I currently am in possession of a functional laptop, boots logs-in launches software, that has a nonfunctional screen. And like all great procrastinators I put off my back-up. (I now have 320GB of external space, this will NOT happen again.) Is there a way to hook it to a external monitor to run the back-up OR back it up without seeing the screen.

Comments

[jazzfish]

Stupid question: does it have a video-out jack on the back? (Trapezoidal, female connection, three rows of holes, basically looks like you could plug a monitor straight into it.) If so you should be able to plug a monitor in and go.

If not, I yield to those with more knowledge of laptop internals than I.

[kaelikat.livejournal.com]

Yeah - there should be a monitor hook up. And if the laptop doesn't immediately realize it's hooked up, there's usually some hotkey you hit to make it use the monitor. What make and model is the lsptop?

[candle.livejournal.com]

If you have an VGA output you should be able to plug that into a monitor and just use the keyboard hotkeys to toggle from the LCD to the external monitor. Even if that doesn't work, provided the drive is not dead, you can pull the drive from the dead laptop and install it in an external USB chassis (note that you will need one compatible with laptop hard drives) and plug it into any USB equipped computer to back up your data.

[l-stboy.livejournal.com]

Pull the drive, and go buy a 2.5" USB drive enclosure (they're about 25 bucks at Frys). You plug the drive into the enclosure, and it shows up on another computer as an external USB drive, and you can copy everything you need.

Are you coming up to the Levitating Plywood event this weekend? (you could use mine if you were, but I haven't been paying attention to the burning man list lately)

[l-stboy.livejournal.com]

um, reading the replies now, what Candle said. :)

[darkfyre-muse.livejournal.com]

There's a Levitating Plywood list? Alas I can not attend as I'm in PA for a wedding. Camp planning is coming nicely. I might be able to have someone down here haul the bike. We'll see. My summer is crazy busy, so a trip North might be difficult. More news later.