About a year ago the screen on my Sony GRX316 laptop died, so I removed the original screen and attached a separate Sony TFT screen which has worked FINE for basic desktop use.

Following a recent software conflict, I now need to boot the MACHINE in safe mode and/or restore from backup discs, but my problem is that the initial boot messages are not displayed on the screen so I can't see what it's doing. Nothing is shown until the Windows logon at which point the software conflict is causing it to automatically reboot, hence the need to boot in safe mode and/or restore from backup. But I don't know how to do that without being able to see the messages on the screen.  

Can anyone suggest how to get out of this catch-22 situation? It's running Windows XP Pro by the way.To boot in Safe Mode, press F8 when the system is starting.Thanks for your reply, but that wasn't the question. I was asking if anyone knows a way of getting boot messages to appear on an auxiliary monitor. When I press F8, I know it's going into safe mode but the problem is that I cannot see the resulting messages on the screen - this being a replacement screen that is attached via the auxiliary monitor port on the laptop. Nothing shows on the screen until the Windows logon message comes up, which is too late because the software conflict that I'm trying to remove causes it to automatically restart at that point. Similarly, BOOTING from system restore disks requires answers to questions that would normally come up on a natively attached screen but are not coming up on this auxiliary monitor.

 

wessexpete2.....  How have you determined that the problem is software conflict ?

dl65  YES - my daughter had the machine for a while and tried to install a new anti-virus package without first uninstalling the OLD one (a different product). Not a good idea! The continual restart loop kicked in as soon as she rebooted as instructed to complete the new install.