Stupid mistake, can not do anything, stuck now

[Oofgeg]

I have 2 monitors, and I was trying to switch my display from both of them to just the one on the right so I could play my 360 on the other like I do all the time, but I accidentally chose some 3rd monitor that doesn't exist so now both monitors are blank. I tried booting up in safe mode and vga mode trying to switch it, but that part of the control panel doesn't open in those modes. I am completely lost and not sure what to do. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

 

[mafadecay]

Hahaha! Actually its not very funny at all. I hate working blind. Atleast you did it to your own PC, I once did the same to an important client and had to reinstall NT to fix it as VGA mode never worked on NT either.

Working blind here is one way to delete your default monitor drivers with keyboard only. Hopefully this default is the new 3rd none existant monitor you set up. Follow them exactly and keep em crossed for a bit of blind luck. If I say type anything exclude my "quotes".

from Inside XP logged on with no screen.

1) Hit the windows key and R (to open run).

2) type "control desktop" and hit enter (Note dont forget the space).

3) Hold down ctrl and slowly press the tab key 4 times. (I say slowly to give it chance to catch up otherwise it will open a different tab and the rest will not work).

4) hold down shift and press "v"

5) Hold down ctrl and slowly press the tab key 2 times (Same as item 3 above but twice instead of 4 times).

6) Hit enter

7) Hold down ctrl and press tab key once

8) hold down shift and press "u"

9) Hit enter

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At this stage, if done correctly, you have deleted your default monitor driver. You can try and press the power button to bomb power and restart as I do not think the changes will be instant.

I searched for function keys and switches but you are limited to laptop function key and F5 which you do not have a function key on a normal keyboard. If anybody has a better idea it may be worth trying them before my blind attempt.

Good luck you will need it.

 

[mafadecay]

I have just noticed that under my enter key I have got a Fn key (function).

I never noticed that before, if you have the same Fn key try holding that and pressing F5 (Think it only works on laptops though).

 

[mafadecay]

So far out of all my suggestions I would try this one second after trying function F5 if you have that key.

Try adding a switch to your boot.ini file found in the root of C:\

Boot into safe mode with the F8 key and using my computer open c:\boot.ini in notepad. (right click it and open with) After all the other switches (normally on the last line) add this switch to force XP to load the standard VGA driver in GUI applications. Hopefully this should also use the standard monitor aswell. Same as the VGA safemode settings but with full normal mode XP functionality allowing you to change that 3rd monitor.

Add " /basevideo" to the last line and save. Once again exclude my quotes and note that there is a space before the forward slash (i.e. space/basevideo). Save and reboot. If no joy repeat steps and remove the entry from the boot.ini