Can i disconnect/remove an onboard laptop screen and boot off external as though main?

should be able to

you may have to use the screen toggle to get the display on external monitor

usually fn + f5 or fn + f4

That depends on the specific laptop.

Can you try it before unhooking the screen?

i wanted to be more sure of the chances it will work before tearing at it for lack of better words.. and i've tried many manner of using the function keys and non direct methods to get it to work off external at boot but its no good i already was using it on a separate monitor but i encountered the black screen of misfortune. so now when its turned on by the time it gets to the external monitor its too late to try anything to fix it. and its an hp. i've put it off awhile so i dont know the exact m# but i can find it if necessary

Right. The boot sequence may no realize that it is supposed to output to an external monitor until it is too late to get into the bios menu

On start, just keep pressing <the bios menu key> until you see something on the screen.

i've tried that aswell when i get to it again i'll retry and wait longer but my last attempt had no success though i may not have even hit the bios key right.

I had a HP laptop at one time and from what I can remember the external display would never initialize until after Windows finished loading at least that is what I remember anyway. The one question I have would be is the LCD display on your laptop dead? If so depending on the model replacement LCD panels can be had for a decent price if you have the know how to replace it yourself.

it is a cracked screen so in a manner of speaking yes. its atleast 2+ years old and has windows 7 os. could i ask you if for yours you ever tried it with no screen connected not just set to external?

normally you can use an external monitor with the laptop screen removed

cant say it will work for every single laptop but has always worked on ones i have repaired

it should be possible to access the bios on an external monitor even with the laptop screen removed

so its not down to windows--you need to either toggle the screen

or if that doesnt work then get in the bios and set display to both internal and external before removing the screen

or replace the screen

You could google the model number of your laptop and find a replacement screen for it. There are even youtube videos that show how to replace them and in most cases it is not that hard. I HP laptop I replaced one on only had 4 screws to remove the fron bezel and from there it was really easy to get the old screen out and replaced. It cost me about $60 and worked great. As far as my HP there was no option in the BIOS to set the external monitor as primary and the fn key to switch to the external did not show the bios it just showed no signal until Windows 7 was almost loaded then it would get a signal.

Yes, you could use an external monitor for your main, but you need to disable the laptop screen, the laptop will only see the external if you close the lid and you set the "close lid" in windows to do nothing. That way the laptop will recognize the external as the main.

see the main problem there is i cant currently afford to replace it. i'm just trying to get it up and running again so my brother has a computer to use or i can get on it and let him use this one.

i have the same problem im trying to figure it out i have an hp pavilion dv4