On 5/15/2022 7:42 PM, Animal wrote:

>
> Wiping the current install out fully & linux are the only options I'm looking at for now. Not interested in preserving any of the garbage now on it.
>
> I don't have usb sticks, but have plenty of usb interfaces + hdds (no laptop hdds tho).
> The laptop hdd partitioning leaves half the disk unallocated, so want to fix that really. Whether Mint 19 can do that without messing it up I don't know.
>
> Tell me if this would fly... If linux will do it I could add a small partition for the win 10 download, and replace the current OS partition with a bigger one using all remaining available space. Wipe the present win partition clean & boot up from the small partition. Presumably win 10 will handle the change of which partition is bootable?
>
> Thank you
>

I've never done it this way, but gave it a try.

https://www.intowindows.com/how-to-clean-install-windows-10-from-iso-file-without-usbdvd/

1) Download the ISO.
2) Mount the ISO as a virtual DVD drive thing.

https://www.intowindows.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Clean-install-Windows-10-from-ISO-file-step1.png

3) Run Setup.exe from the mounted DVD (as seen in picture).

https://www.intowindows.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Clean-install-Windows-10-from-ISO-file-step2.png

4) When you see this window, this is the step before nuke and pave.
This window is a summary of what to do. What is shown here is Repair Install.

https://www.intowindows.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Clean-install-Windows-10-from-ISO-file-step5.png

Now, if you look in that dialog, it says "Change what to keep".
By changing the setting to "Keep nothing", that should do it.

What do we know ?

We know that the Windows 10 installer is (roughly) four stages.

The ISO (virtual DVD) portion of the install is only necessary
for the first stage. The other three stages are "self igniting"
and use the boot info placed during first install. If the ISO
were to get erased during the last three stages, that
will not kill the procedure.

In the root of C: are a couple work folders with $ as the first
character. Installation materials are sometimes staged there. That
could be where the ISO contents are copied for this install to work.

By watching what it was doing (you can do that from Task Manager),
it's possible it is decompressing install.wim from E:\sources, but
re-compressing it into one of the $ folders. A giant waste of time!

Since it's a clean install, it does not matter about release numbers
of Windows. But you can use release numbers to prove it's been paved over.
(Check "winver" command after run completes.)

The install looks like it can roll back. Initially I thought it might
be an all or nothing, but if it runs into trouble, it just might
return the machine to decrepit state (but that could take a couple hours
to do). You need a *lot* of patience with this stuff!

[Picture] If the frame is blank, right-click and select "Reload Image"

https://i.postimg.cc/ydvbhrMb/clean-install-no-DVD.gif

One recommendation, before you start:

Administrator Powershell or Command Prompt:

fsutil behavior set disablecompression 1

Do that before kickoff of the Clean Install procedure,
and that will avoid some of the unnecessary compression
into that $ folder. You don't have a lot of CPU to waste
on such frippery. Since you claim to have a HDD, there's
probably plenty of storage on C: (like 320GB say), to not
have to worry a bit about install size.

It's tablets, where the decision is hard to make about
compression issues, as tablets are always low on storage.

I did my test in a constrained space, as I was using
a virtual machine for test. I suspect the storage phase
will top out at around 35GB or so (not finished yet).

Sometimes the installer will whine about storage and
tell you what the "recommended" storage size is, but
not in this case. Only if you pinch it way too tight,
is it going to whine. Double the current C: fill
(ignoring user files) is usually enough. Mine started
at about 17GB of system files. It uses a bit of space
for pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys .

Runtime was about 57 minutes. That's with me putting
pedal to the metal on my setup.

Look to lower left for "Offline Account" and
"Limited Experience", while you are selecting
the "local account" installation option. If you want
to add an MSA (Microsoft Account), that can be done
later, with less disruption.

Paul

On 16/05/2022 09:19, Martin Brown wrote:

> My faith in such cloud based systems is somewhat lacking - particularly
> if the OP no longer knows the password for the former admin account on
> the machine. I don't believe the Mickeysoft servers will play unless you
> log in with your MS account credentials first. He needs to rescue the
> magic authenitcation code before he trashes anything.

I think you are conflating a couple of unrelated things here... there
*is* a case where an activation can be tied to a MS account, but that is
not what we are describing here[1]

Once you have a working and activated Win 10 install on a machine
(windows will report it as "Windows is activated with a digital
license"), then that machine will forever more automatically reactivate
with win 10.

You need no serial number, no ms account, no admin passwords etc. Every
time that hardware signature turns up looking to activate, the MS
activation servers will allow it because it is already known and
recorded in their database as having a legit license.

Hence you can safely blow away a current working or non working install,
and it will reload and re-activate.

[1] No there is another cases where say for example you had bought win
10 as a retail of product key card version (i.e. a standard retail
purchase rather than an OEM version bundled with a new machine), then
you can elect to have that linked to a MS account. This can be useful if
you want to re-activate that license on a new or substantially changed
PC - say after a motherboard swap. Since at that point the normal
automatic reactivation would fail since it will look like new hardware.
At this point having an activation linked to a MS account will allow you
to recover the activation in those circumstances as well.

See here for more details:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/reactivating-windows-after-a-hardware-change-2c0e962a-f04c-145b-6ead-fb3fc72b6665#ID0EBD=Windows_10

--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

I wiped the disc, couldn't get mint 19.1 mate to install on the laptop so installed it onto the hdd in a totally different machine, figuring I could then repair or reinstall once the hdd was back in the laptop. Lappie boots up, but has no bottom bar and no windows button function is visible on screen. Poking around revealed no way to get it to do anything more than create/edit a text file.

I think the first problem is the screen resolution. The logo that should be central is over on the right. The screen setup is odd, I won't bore you but I'd need to set the resolution manually but it's not playing ball on that.. Any ideas how to move forward from here?

On 18/05/2022 23:16, Animal wrote:

> I wiped the disc, couldn't get mint 19.1 mate to install on the
> laptop so installed it onto the hdd in a totally different machine,
> figuring I could then repair or reinstall once the hdd was back in
> the laptop. Lappie boots up, but has no bottom bar and no windows
> button function is visible on screen. Poking around revealed no way
> to get it to do anything more than create/edit a text file.
>
> I think the first problem is the screen resolution. The logo that
> should be central is over on the right. The screen setup is odd, I
> won't bore you but I'd need to set the resolution manually but it's
> not playing ball on that. Any ideas how to move forward from here?

Win 10 needs a minimum screen resolution of 800x600 to work properly. I
would expect even the most basic VGA driver should support that.

So how did you get to here? i.e. was this running setup from a USB drive
or from a DVD? If so that ought to pick a useable screen mode.

If you are stuck in the "Out of the Box Experience" (OOBE) (the list of
dumb questions windows asks after first install to try and get you to
sign up for a MS account etc), then you can bail out of that at any
point into so called "Audit Mode"[1] by hitting CTRL + SHIT + F3. That
will dump you at the windows desktop logged in using a default
administrator account. You can now install software and drivers etc.

[1] Its is designed so that system builders can configure a new machine,
and load drivers etc without needing to create a user, or mess up the
real users OOBE. Once done, they can restart and tell it to boot in OOBE
next time.

--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

John Rumm wrote:

> Win 10 needs a minimum screen resolution of 800x600 to work properly. I would
> expect even the most basic VGA driver should support that.
>
> So how did you get to here? i.e. was this running setup from a USB drive or from
> a DVD? If so that ought to pick a useable screen mode.

I think the O/P has gone the nuke and use Linux route, rather than nuke and
re-install Windows? Does the person who will be using it get a say?

On 19/05/2022 11:34, Andy Burns wrote:
> John Rumm wrote:
>
>> Win 10 needs a minimum screen resolution of 800x600 to work properly.
>> I would expect even the most basic VGA driver should support that.
>>
>> So how did you get to here? i.e. was this running setup from a USB
>> drive or from a DVD? If so that ought to pick a useable screen mode.
>
> I think the O/P has gone the nuke and use Linux route, rather than nuke
> and re-install Windows?

yup on re-reading I think you are right - it was the mention of "no
windows button" that threw me :-)

--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

On 5/18/2022 6:16 PM, Animal wrote:
> I wiped the disc, couldn't get mint 19.1 mate to install on the laptop so installed it onto the hdd in a totally different machine, figuring I could then repair or reinstall once the hdd was back in the laptop. Lappie boots up, but has no bottom bar and no windows button function is visible on screen. Poking around revealed no way to get it to do anything more than create/edit a text file.
>
> I think the first problem is the screen resolution. The logo that should be central is over on the right. The screen setup is odd, I won't bore you but I'd need to set the resolution manually but it's not playing ball on that. Any ideas how to move forward from here?
>

In all the excitement, we still don't have any details on the machine.

The laptop panels can use LVDS to send the digital image to the panel.
This makes the cable thin, that snakes through the hinge.

A consequence of not using HDMI, DP, DVI, VGA to the panel, is
no Plug and Play info. The Plug and Play must be "faked" by the
platform.

If you replace a 1366x768 panel with a 1920x1080 panel, the image
shifts to one corner of the screen. A 1366x768 area of the screen
lights up, the rest is black. To correct that, requires that
the "faking info" be changed. That's an example of a problem which
would be evident both in Windows or in Linux Mint.

*******

The "xrandr" command could give you some info. Of course, you're
not able to run much of anything at the moment. Crafting an actual
working "xrandr" command is not easy. On my laptop, the output is
labeled as "LVDS" for the panel. This example might not have
been a laptop, since there is no LVDS mentioned.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/xrandr

xrandr

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 3200 x 1080, maximum 8192 x 8192
VGA-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI-1 connected primary 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 531mm x 299mm
1920x1080 59.93 + 60.00* 50.00 59.94
1920x1080i 60.00 50.00 59.94
1680x1050 59.88

*******

control-alt F1 Text terminal number 1
control-alt F2 Text terminal number 2
control-alt F3 Text terminal number 3
control-alt F4 Text terminal number 4
control-alt F5 Text terminal number 5
control-alt F6 Text terminal number 6
control-alt F7 Return to display manager screen

Open a text terminal, and use xrandr there, to gather evidence.

While in text terminal, "sudo shutdown now" to shut down the laptop.

If a machine only reports 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, the
machine is in VESA mode. No graphics driver has loaded.

The command "inxi -G" can tell you something about the
graphics at the moment, what driver has loaded, but it
doesn't tell you how to fix anything. On Mint, the command
would already be present. On some other Debian, it would
be something like

sudo apt install inxi # type "y" for yes

inxi -G # graphics info

While you can edit the boot command line, and enter
a "nomodeset" to avoid KMS... that's not really
going to help you long term.

If you were in the right place, you'd see "quiet splash",
and replace those with "nomodeset vga=792". I actually
got something like that working the other day. Or I would
not have bothered mentioning it. Normally that would
not work, the vga= part.

*******

These are VGA charts I acquired long ago. Should be
irrelevant in 2022, but just the other day one of
these worked. You can see what I'm trying to do with
the 792. Give you enough screen so you can see a
bar at the bottom. There is no point commanding larger
screen values, as when in VESA mode, 1024x768 is
typically the best you can do.

VGA Resolution and Color Depth reference Chart:
Depth 800x600 1024x768 1152x864 1280x1024 1600x1200
8 bit vga=771 vga=773 vga=353 vga=775 vga=796
16 bit vga=788 vga=791 vga=355 vga=794 vga=798
24 bit vga=789 vga=792 --- vga=795 vga=799

Colors bits 640x480 800x600 1024x768 1152x864 1280x1024 1600x1200
256 8 vga=769 vga=771 vga=773 vga=353 vga=775 vga=796
32000 ? vga=784 vga=787 vga=790 vga= ? vga=793 vga= ?
65000 16 vga=785 vga=788 vga=791 vga=355 vga=794 vga=798
16.7M 24 vga=786 vga=789 vga=792 vga=795 vga=799

It's past my pay scale now, to figure out the entire
puzzle remotely. Xorg and Wayland are part of the picture.
VESA, GOP, NVIdia, AMD, Intel and so on, are part of
the picture. There are innumerable layers and stupid
stuff to deal with. Sometimes, no command results in
the screen lighting during the boot sequence (limiting
the ability to gather evidence). In the old days, it
was harder for the OS to hobble the screen completely.

Paul

On Thursday, 19 May 2022 at 11:34:16 UTC+1, Andy Burns wrote:
> John Rumm wrote:
>
> > Win 10 needs a minimum screen resolution of 800x600 to work properly. I would
> > expect even the most basic VGA driver should support that.
> >
> > So how did you get to here? i.e. was this running setup from a USB drive or from
> > a DVD? If so that ought to pick a useable screen mode.
> I think the O/P has gone the nuke and use Linux route, rather than nuke and
> re-install Windows? Does the person who will be using it get a say?

Yeah I've put Mint 19.1 mate on it. And no, they don't.

On Thursday, 19 May 2022 at 17:09:29 UTC+1, Paul wrote:
> On 5/18/2022 6:16 PM, Animal wrote:

> > I wiped the disc, couldn't get mint 19.1 mate to install on the laptop so installed it onto the hdd in a totally different machine, figuring I could then repair or reinstall once the hdd was back in the laptop. Lappie boots up, but has no bottom bar and no windows button function is visible on screen. Poking around revealed no way to get it to do anything more than create/edit a text file.
> >
> > I think the first problem is the screen resolution. The logo that should be central is over on the right. The screen setup is odd, I won't bore you but I'd need to set the resolution manually but it's not playing ball on that. Any ideas how to move forward from here?
> >
> In all the excitement, we still don't have any details on the machine.

Tell me what details you want :)

> The laptop panels can use LVDS to send the digital image to the panel.
> This makes the cable thin, that snakes through the hinge.
>
> A consequence of not using HDMI, DP, DVI, VGA to the panel, is
> no Plug and Play info. The Plug and Play must be "faked" by the
> platform.
>
> If you replace a 1366x768 panel with a 1920x1080 panel, the image
> shifts to one corner of the screen. A 1366x768 area of the screen
> lights up, the rest is black. To correct that, requires that
> the "faking info" be changed. That's an example of a problem which
> would be evident both in Windows or in Linux Mint.
>
> *******
>
> The "xrandr" command could give you some info. Of course, you're
> not able to run much of anything at the moment. Crafting an actual
> working "xrandr" command is not easy. On my laptop, the output is
> labeled as "LVDS" for the panel. This example might not have
> been a laptop, since there is no LVDS mentioned.
>
> https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/xrandr
>
> xrandr
>
> Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 3200 x 1080, maximum 8192 x 8192
> VGA-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
> HDMI-1 connected primary 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 531mm x 299mm
> 1920x1080 59.93 + 60.00* 50.00 59.94
> 1920x1080i 60.00 50.00 59.94
> 1680x1050 59.88
>
> *******
>
> control-alt F1 Text terminal number 1
> control-alt F2 Text terminal number 2
> control-alt F3 Text terminal number 3
> control-alt F4 Text terminal number 4
> control-alt F5 Text terminal number 5
> control-alt F6 Text terminal number 6
> control-alt F7 Return to display manager screen
>
> Open a text terminal, and use xrandr there, to gather evidence.
>
> While in text terminal, "sudo shutdown now" to shut down the laptop.
>
> If a machine only reports 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, the
> machine is in VESA mode. No graphics driver has loaded.
>
> The command "inxi -G" can tell you something about the
> graphics at the moment, what driver has loaded, but it
> doesn't tell you how to fix anything. On Mint, the command
> would already be present. On some other Debian, it would
> be something like
>
> sudo apt install inxi # type "y" for yes
>
> inxi -G # graphics info
>
> While you can edit the boot command line, and enter
> a "nomodeset" to avoid KMS... that's not really
> going to help you long term.
>
> If you were in the right place, you'd see "quiet splash",
> and replace those with "nomodeset vga=792". I actually
> got something like that working the other day. Or I would
> not have bothered mentioning it. Normally that would
> not work, the vga= part.
>
> *******
>
> These are VGA charts I acquired long ago. Should be
> irrelevant in 2022, but just the other day one of
> these worked. You can see what I'm trying to do with
> the 792. Give you enough screen so you can see a
> bar at the bottom. There is no point commanding larger
> screen values, as when in VESA mode, 1024x768 is
> typically the best you can do.
>
> VGA Resolution and Color Depth reference Chart:
> Depth 800x600 1024x768 1152x864 1280x1024 1600x1200
> 8 bit vga=771 vga=773 vga=353 vga=775 vga=796
> 16 bit vga=788 vga=791 vga=355 vga=794 vga=798
> 24 bit vga=789 vga=792 --- vga=795 vga=799
>
> Colors bits 640x480 800x600 1024x768 1152x864 1280x1024 1600x1200
> 256 8 vga=769 vga=771 vga=773 vga=353 vga=775 vga=796
> 32000 ? vga=784 vga=787 vga=790 vga= ? vga=793 vga= ?
> 65000 16 vga=785 vga=788 vga=791 vga=355 vga=794 vga=798
> 16.7M 24 vga=786 vga=789 vga=792 vga=795 vga=799
>
> It's past my pay scale now, to figure out the entire
> puzzle remotely. Xorg and Wayland are part of the picture.
> VESA, GOP, NVIdia, AMD, Intel and so on, are part of
> the picture. There are innumerable layers and stupid
> stuff to deal with. Sometimes, no command results in
> the screen lighting during the boot sequence (limiting
> the ability to gather evidence). In the old days, it
> was harder for the OS to hobble the screen completely.
>
> Paul

xrandr & inxi data:
Vga1 connected 1280x1024+1280+0
1280x1024 60.02*

The external monitor is a 2007 dell E198fpf, specs: 1280x1024.

There are 2 monitors connected, the internal one is borked & the owner is not interested in paying to replace it. So her old backup monitor is plugged in, but inbuilt one is still running albeit unintelligible and of wider screen shape.

On Thursday, 19 May 2022 at 22:30:40 UTC+1, Animal wrote:
> On Thursday, 19 May 2022 at 17:09:29 UTC+1, Paul wrote:
> > On 5/18/2022 6:16 PM, Animal wrote:
>
> > > I wiped the disc, couldn't get mint 19.1 mate to install on the laptop so installed it onto the hdd in a totally different machine, figuring I could then repair or reinstall once the hdd was back in the laptop. Lappie boots up, but has no bottom bar and no windows button function is visible on screen. Poking around revealed no way to get it to do anything more than create/edit a text file.
> > >
> > > I think the first problem is the screen resolution. The logo that should be central is over on the right. The screen setup is odd, I won't bore you but I'd need to set the resolution manually but it's not playing ball on that. Any ideas how to move forward from here?
> > >
> > In all the excitement, we still don't have any details on the machine.
> Tell me what details you want :)
> > The laptop panels can use LVDS to send the digital image to the panel.
> > This makes the cable thin, that snakes through the hinge.
> >
> > A consequence of not using HDMI, DP, DVI, VGA to the panel, is
> > no Plug and Play info. The Plug and Play must be "faked" by the
> > platform.
> >
> > If you replace a 1366x768 panel with a 1920x1080 panel, the image
> > shifts to one corner of the screen. A 1366x768 area of the screen
> > lights up, the rest is black. To correct that, requires that
> > the "faking info" be changed. That's an example of a problem which
> > would be evident both in Windows or in Linux Mint.
> >
> > *******
> >
> > The "xrandr" command could give you some info. Of course, you're
> > not able to run much of anything at the moment. Crafting an actual
> > working "xrandr" command is not easy. On my laptop, the output is
> > labeled as "LVDS" for the panel. This example might not have
> > been a laptop, since there is no LVDS mentioned.
> >
> > https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/xrandr
> >
> > xrandr
> >
> > Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 3200 x 1080, maximum 8192 x 8192
> > VGA-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
> > HDMI-1 connected primary 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 531mm x 299mm
> > 1920x1080 59.93 + 60.00* 50.00 59.94
> > 1920x1080i 60.00 50.00 59.94
> > 1680x1050 59.88
> >
> > *******
> >
> > control-alt F1 Text terminal number 1
> > control-alt F2 Text terminal number 2
> > control-alt F3 Text terminal number 3
> > control-alt F4 Text terminal number 4
> > control-alt F5 Text terminal number 5
> > control-alt F6 Text terminal number 6
> > control-alt F7 Return to display manager screen
> >
> > Open a text terminal, and use xrandr there, to gather evidence.
> >
> > While in text terminal, "sudo shutdown now" to shut down the laptop.
> >
> > If a machine only reports 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, the
> > machine is in VESA mode. No graphics driver has loaded.
> >
> > The command "inxi -G" can tell you something about the
> > graphics at the moment, what driver has loaded, but it
> > doesn't tell you how to fix anything. On Mint, the command
> > would already be present. On some other Debian, it would
> > be something like
> >
> > sudo apt install inxi # type "y" for yes
> >
> > inxi -G # graphics info
> >
> > While you can edit the boot command line, and enter
> > a "nomodeset" to avoid KMS... that's not really
> > going to help you long term.
> >
> > If you were in the right place, you'd see "quiet splash",
> > and replace those with "nomodeset vga=792". I actually
> > got something like that working the other day. Or I would
> > not have bothered mentioning it. Normally that would
> > not work, the vga= part.
> >
> > *******
> >
> > These are VGA charts I acquired long ago. Should be
> > irrelevant in 2022, but just the other day one of
> > these worked. You can see what I'm trying to do with
> > the 792. Give you enough screen so you can see a
> > bar at the bottom. There is no point commanding larger
> > screen values, as when in VESA mode, 1024x768 is
> > typically the best you can do.
> >
> > VGA Resolution and Color Depth reference Chart:
> > Depth 800x600 1024x768 1152x864 1280x1024 1600x1200
> > 8 bit vga=771 vga=773 vga=353 vga=775 vga=796
> > 16 bit vga=788 vga=791 vga=355 vga=794 vga=798
> > 24 bit vga=789 vga=792 --- vga=795 vga=799
> >
> > Colors bits 640x480 800x600 1024x768 1152x864 1280x1024 1600x1200
> > 256 8 vga=769 vga=771 vga=773 vga=353 vga=775 vga=796
> > 32000 ? vga=784 vga=787 vga=790 vga= ? vga=793 vga= ?
> > 65000 16 vga=785 vga=788 vga=791 vga=355 vga=794 vga=798
> > 16.7M 24 vga=786 vga=789 vga=792 vga=795 vga=799
> >
> > It's past my pay scale now, to figure out the entire
> > puzzle remotely. Xorg and Wayland are part of the picture.
> > VESA, GOP, NVIdia, AMD, Intel and so on, are part of
> > the picture. There are innumerable layers and stupid
> > stuff to deal with. Sometimes, no command results in
> > the screen lighting during the boot sequence (limiting
> > the ability to gather evidence). In the old days, it
> > was harder for the OS to hobble the screen completely.
> >
> > Paul
> xrandr & inxi data:
> Vga1 connected 1280x1024+1280+0
> 1280x1024 60.02*
>
> The external monitor is a 2007 dell E198fpf, specs: 1280x1024.
>
> There are 2 monitors connected, the internal one is borked & the owner is not interested in paying to replace it. So her old backup monitor is plugged in, but inbuilt one is still running albeit unintelligible and of wider screen shape.

A command line command to reinstall might be all I need.

On 5/19/2022 5:31 PM, Animal wrote:

>> The external monitor is a 2007 dell E198fpf, specs: 1280x1024.
>>
>> There are 2 monitors connected, the internal one is borked & the owner is not interested in paying to replace it. So her old backup monitor is plugged in, but inbuilt one is still running albeit unintelligible and of wider screen shape.
>
> A command line command to reinstall might be all I need.
>

On a laptop, there is usually an Fkey that cycles
through monitor modes.

Main monitor
External monitor
Span
Clone
... sequence repeats

However, when I ran Mint on the laptop, the Fkey did
not work for the monitor. Only F3 "Airplane Mode" worked
to change the hardware state to Wifi off.

Now, when I booted with the external monitor connected,
for some reason it made the external monitor the primary.
(Which is certainly a good choice for making adjustments,
if the bricks happen to fall the right way.)

But what are the odds of it doing that for you ?

If the keyboard function for this would work, this
would be no problem at all dealing with a dead screen.
(Mirror mode would insure both screens had the
same image, and the scrambled screen could be ignored.)

But as long as you have to do something weird or kooky,
I don't see this ending well.

Maybe xrandr can turn off a monitor, if you can see the
screen while opening a text terminal. I doubt the text
terminal is clever in any way, and is likely to try to
appear on the primary (scrambled?) monitor.

xrandr # dump the output to make
# sure you have the identifiers
# in hand

xrandr --output VGA1 --same-as LVDS # xrandr is always a cranky piece
# of crap, so expect "resistance".

Then go to "All" "Display" and select the correct
resolution to make VGA1 native resolution.

No, I do not see "reinstalling" as solving this.
It's going to sniff hardware, and do the same
damn thing a second time.

*******

There are a number of reasons for a screen to be scrambled.

It could have been dropped. Damaging the glass or the matrix drivers
or something.

But a popular way to wreck something, is mess up the thin cable
carrying the LVDS signals. I'm sure a new cable is just as
hard to find as a new screen :-)

And the laptop probably does not care what you do to the panel.
Because there is no PNP on panels, it might not even notice
when the LVDS cable is disconnected. If it had PNP, I could tell
you to unplug the panel, to make the external monitor the
guy in the driver seat.

Paul

Animal <tabbypurr@gmail.com> wrote:
> There are 2 monitors connected, the internal one is borked
> & the owner is not interested in paying to replace it. So
> her old backup monitor is plugged in, but inbuilt one is
> still running albeit unintelligible and of wider screen shape.
>

I've not been following this, so I may be at a tangent, ot
repeating something already mentioned, but fwiw my debian
install (xfce desktop) gives two choices if there are two
displays connected.

Either to treat them independently (so different resolutions
allowed, but some things will show on one but not the other,
which can be problematic if one is broken); or mirrored, where
they show the same things, but if one is lower res, it gets
truncated (and I supposed if I make the lower-rs one the main
one, the larger res will get blank edges).

#Paul

On 5/20/2022 2:17 AM, #Paul wrote:
> Animal <tabbypurr@gmail.com> wrote:
>> There are 2 monitors connected, the internal one is borked
>> & the owner is not interested in paying to replace it. So
>> her old backup monitor is plugged in, but inbuilt one is
>> still running albeit unintelligible and of wider screen shape.
>>
>
> I've not been following this, so I may be at a tangent, ot
> repeating something already mentioned, but fwiw my debian
> install (xfce desktop) gives two choices if there are two
> displays connected.
>
> Either to treat them independently (so different resolutions
> allowed, but some things will show on one but not the other,
> which can be problematic if one is broken); or mirrored, where
> they show the same things, but if one is lower res, it gets
> truncated (and I supposed if I make the lower-rs one the main
> one, the larger res will get blank edges).
>
>
>
>
> #Paul
>

Given that the "main monitor" seems to be the broken one,
to me the issue is whether there's any way to issue commands
or do anything to fix it.

I'd hoped my laptop would demonstrate that the F5 key worked
in Linux, but it didn't work for me here. That was going to be
my slick way to get out of this mess.

There are lots of situations on computers, where you just
can't work the controls to gain traction.

On some of the VMs I've run here in the past, on VirtualPC,
the emulated graphics were some SIS chipset graphics. Complete
with a limitation that forced me to inject Xorg.conf files
into the Linux setups. Just so I could see the screen. I would
hate to have to resort to doing that, as with Wayland on the
horizon or already in place, I have no idea whether an Xorg.conf
can tell Wayland what to do.

(Part of an xorg.conf from VirtualPC and SIS days)

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "Unknown"
# Hacked numbers, to prevent sync rates from limiting operating modes
HorizSync 31.5 - 75.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 100.0

# Modelines via "cvt".
Modeline "1152x864_50.00" 66.25 1152 1208 1320 1488 864 867 871 892 -hsync +vsync
Modeline "1024x768_60.00" 63.50 1024 1072 1176 1328 768 771 775 790 -hsync +vsync
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "s3"
VendorName "Vanilla Corporation"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
# Try values like 8, 16, or the default 24 bit
DefaultDepth 16 <=== bit depth gives 64K colors, nonstandard
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1152x864_50.00"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Paul

Animal <tabbypurr@gmail.com> wrote:
> but inbuilt one is still running albeit unintelligible
> and of wider screen shape.

What do you mean by "unintelligible"? Is it that it looks
coherent, but you can't see enough of whatever it might be to
work anything out? Is it like some weird scaled version of what
you expect, but truncated? If so, does that look like it
*might* be the standard graphical background as on the other
screen? Or is it a load of texty but incomprehensible system
messages?

Alternatively, does it instead look like random coloured junk?
A selection of blurry lines that might change as you move the
mouse, or as you type?

Or something else? If so, what?

#Paul

On Friday, 20 May 2022 at 19:32:06 UTC+1, #Paul wrote:
> Animal <tabb...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > but inbuilt one is still running albeit unintelligible
> > and of wider screen shape.
> What do you mean by "unintelligible"? Is it that it looks
> coherent, but you can't see enough of whatever it might be to
> work anything out? Is it like some weird scaled version of what
> you expect, but truncated? If so, does that look like it
> *might* be the standard graphical background as on the other
> screen? Or is it a load of texty but incomprehensible system
> messages?
>
> Alternatively, does it instead look like random coloured junk?
> A selection of blurry lines that might change as you move the
> mouse, or as you type?
>
> Or something else? If so, what?
>
>
> #Paul

As I said it's broken and completely unintelligible. Whether the guilty party was an elephant or a dog changes nothing.

The function keys all did nothing, I guess they must all work via windows (originally). I've realised it looks like Mint is running it as a dual screen setup, as there is a little patch on the primary screen that goes grey when winkey is pressed, but nothing shows on the external screen. The good news is I had a word tonight and have persuaded them to pay for a new laptop screen, hopefully that will sort it.

I may still need to reinstall from the lap, depending how well Mint does or doesn't work. Mint sniffed the desktop hardware when installed on a desktop, who knows whether the drivers it picked will also work on the lap. It's fairly likely I'll need to find out how to do that later.

Thanks for your assistance. Life really was simpler in the 98 days.

On 5/20/2022 5:32 PM, Animal wrote:
> On Friday, 20 May 2022 at 19:32:06 UTC+1, #Paul wrote:
>> Animal <tabb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> but inbuilt one is still running albeit unintelligible
>>> and of wider screen shape.
>> What do you mean by "unintelligible"? Is it that it looks
>> coherent, but you can't see enough of whatever it might be to
>> work anything out? Is it like some weird scaled version of what
>> you expect, but truncated? If so, does that look like it
>> *might* be the standard graphical background as on the other
>> screen? Or is it a load of texty but incomprehensible system
>> messages?
>>
>> Alternatively, does it instead look like random coloured junk?
>> A selection of blurry lines that might change as you move the
>> mouse, or as you type?
>>
>> Or something else? If so, what?
>>
>>
>> #Paul
>
> As I said it's broken and completely unintelligible. Whether the guilty party was an elephant or a dog changes nothing.
>
> The function keys all did nothing, I guess they must all work via windows (originally). I've realised it looks like Mint is running it as a dual screen setup, as there is a little patch on the primary screen that goes grey when winkey is pressed, but nothing shows on the external screen. The good news is I had a word tonight and have persuaded them to pay for a new laptop screen, hopefully that will sort it.
>
> I may still need to reinstall from the lap, depending how well Mint does or doesn't work. Mint sniffed the desktop hardware when installed on a desktop, who knows whether the drivers it picked will also work on the lap. It's fairly likely I'll need to find out how to do that later.
>
> Thanks for your assistance. Life really was simpler in the 98 days.
>

You could still take pictures of the two screens, and
post those. If you use the "Take Screenshot" function,
that can take a picture of what the OS is trying to display.
Whereas pictures shot with a digital point-and-shoot represent
the physical damage (bad ball on NVidia BGA, bad LVDS/power cable,
or bad panel).

https://postimages.org/

Sometimes you can figure out from the history of the model
number alone, it's not worth working on them (no used motherboard
would ever be better than the one you've already got).

My Acer has an ally plate glued to the front, with all the
model details on it.

Some laptop GPUs, have four VRAM fitted to the top of the GPU.
And if the defect pattern had spots or circles, it might be
failed VRAM on the top of the GPU. ATI does that. The GPU on
mine, being lower end, uses main memory for the frame buffer
or 3D textures.

Paul

On 5/20/2022 8:53 PM, Paul wrote:
> On 5/20/2022 5:32 PM, Animal wrote:
>> On Friday, 20 May 2022 at 19:32:06 UTC+1, #Paul wrote:
>>> Animal <tabb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> but inbuilt one is still running albeit unintelligible
>>>> and of wider screen shape.
>>> What do you mean by "unintelligible"? Is it that it looks
>>> coherent, but you can't see enough of whatever it might be to
>>> work anything out? Is it like some weird scaled version of what
>>> you expect, but truncated? If so, does that look like it
>>> *might* be the standard graphical background as on the other
>>> screen? Or is it a load of texty but incomprehensible system
>>> messages?
>>>
>>> Alternatively, does it instead look like random coloured junk?
>>> A selection of blurry lines that might change as you move the
>>> mouse, or as you type?
>>>
>>> Or something else? If so, what?
>>>
>>>
>>> #Paul
>>
>> As I said it's broken and completely unintelligible. Whether the guilty party was an elephant or a dog changes nothing.
>>
>> The function keys all did nothing, I guess they must all work via windows (originally). I've realised it looks like Mint is running it as a dual screen setup, as there is a little patch on the primary screen that goes grey when winkey is pressed, but nothing shows on the external screen. The good news is I had a word tonight and have persuaded them to pay for a new laptop screen, hopefully that will sort it.
>>
>> I may still need to reinstall from the lap, depending how well Mint does or doesn't work. Mint sniffed the desktop hardware when installed on a desktop, who knows whether the drivers it picked will also work on the lap. It's fairly likely I'll need to find out how to do that later.
>>
>> Thanks for your assistance. Life really was simpler in the 98 days.
>>
>
> You could still take pictures of the two screens

"Direct Link"

https://i.postimg.cc/x8ppHnJj/laptop-dual.gif

One thing I noticed, is when using the control-alt-F3 style
text screens, those are mirrored on both monitors. So you
should be able to type text commands OK. Then control-alt-F7
to go back to the Mint desktop.

Paul

On Fri, 13 May 2022 14:25:31 +0100, John Rumm
<see.my.signature@nowhere.null> wrote:
>
>If you have 7, 8, or 8.1, then 7 and 8 are no longer supported, and 8.1
>is more trouble than it is worth, but you are entitled to update to 10
>or later at no cost. The next thing to do will be to see if you can run
>produkey and recover the windows installation key:

You worry me saying Windows 8.1 is more trouble than it is worth.
That's what I use on my laptop, and is the highest I'm prepared to go
with Windows, to avoid forced updates. If it stops working I will
revert to Linux Mint which I also have as an alternative, and say
goodbye to all the Microsoft Word features I use.
So can you describe the troubles you speak of?
--
Dave W

On 21/05/2022 12:11, Dave W wrote:
> On Fri, 13 May 2022 14:25:31 +0100, John Rumm
> <see.my.signature@nowhere.null> wrote:
>
>>
>> If you have 7, 8, or 8.1, then 7 and 8 are no longer supported, and 8.1
>> is more trouble than it is worth, but you are entitled to update to 10
>> or later at no cost. The next thing to do will be to see if you can run
>> produkey and recover the windows installation key:
>
>
> You worry me saying Windows 8.1 is more trouble than it is worth.
> That's what I use on my laptop, and is the highest I'm prepared to go
> with Windows, to avoid forced updates. If it stops working I will
> revert to Linux Mint which I also have as an alternative, and say
> goodbye to all the Microsoft Word features I use.
>
> So can you describe the troubles you speak of?

I was speaking particularly in the context of a fresh install, where win
10 is going to be much easier to install and activate in most cases[1].

You also don't need to spend any effort faffing about to banish the
start screen and regain a useable start menu. Even when you get Start8
or similar 3rd party menu replacements installed, it is still not
possible to fully banish some of the more incongruous / annoying
limitations of the Win8 touch oriented UI. (for example when you use any
of the start bar drop down panels like the networking/vpn one - it still
consumes any click outside of the panel as an instruction to close it -
so it is now impossible to cut and paste credentials into a new VPN
connection)

[1] When win 8 came out, I bought three copies of the "Pro" version
since MS were doing a deal where I could get them for about £30 IIRC. So
I used one as my main "productivity" platform for a number of years, and
used a couple on family machines. I upgraded to 8.1 when available. It
mostly worked well enough, but for the lame UI and the whole concept of
"let's try and make your twin monitor setup behave like a tablet" aspect.

Having moved to 10, I feel absolutely no nostalgia for 8 at all (unlike
7 for example, where I do miss the better coherence of the UI, and have
always felt that the way the Modern/TIFKAM handles settings changes
"immediately" is loss of useful functionality).

--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

On Friday, 20 May 2022 at 22:32:19 UTC+1, Animal wrote:
> On Friday, 20 May 2022 at 19:32:06 UTC+1, #Paul wrote:
> > Animal <tabb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > but inbuilt one is still running albeit unintelligible
> > > and of wider screen shape.
> > What do you mean by "unintelligible"? Is it that it looks
> > coherent, but you can't see enough of whatever it might be to
> > work anything out? Is it like some weird scaled version of what
> > you expect, but truncated? If so, does that look like it
> > *might* be the standard graphical background as on the other
> > screen? Or is it a load of texty but incomprehensible system
> > messages?
> >
> > Alternatively, does it instead look like random coloured junk?
> > A selection of blurry lines that might change as you move the
> > mouse, or as you type?
> >
> > Or something else? If so, what?
> >
> >
> > #Paul
> As I said it's broken and completely unintelligible. Whether the guilty party was an elephant or a dog changes nothing.
>
> The function keys all did nothing, I guess they must all work via windows (originally). I've realised it looks like Mint is running it as a dual screen setup, as there is a little patch on the primary screen that goes grey when winkey is pressed, but nothing shows on the external screen. The good news is I had a word tonight and have persuaded them to pay for a new laptop screen, hopefully that will sort it.
>
> I may still need to reinstall from the lap, depending how well Mint does or doesn't work. Mint sniffed the desktop hardware when installed on a desktop, who knows whether the drivers it picked will also work on the lap. It's fairly likely I'll need to find out how to do that later.
>
> Thanks for your assistance. Life really was simpler in the 98 days.

Things have escalated. Rather than spend £10 on a new screen they've gone for a whole new dual core laptop at £25. Makes life easy. I think the cpu upgrade is worth the extra £15, and it'll take the ram from the old one.

On Sat, 21 May 2022 10:53:06 +1000, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

> On 5/20/2022 5:32 PM, Animal wrote:
>> On Friday, 20 May 2022 at 19:32:06 UTC+1, #Paul wrote:
>>> Animal <tabb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> but inbuilt one is still running albeit unintelligible
>>>> and of wider screen shape.
>>> What do you mean by "unintelligible"? Is it that it looks
>>> coherent, but you can't see enough of whatever it might be to
>>> work anything out? Is it like some weird scaled version of what
>>> you expect, but truncated? If so, does that look like it
>>> *might* be the standard graphical background as on the other
>>> screen? Or is it a load of texty but incomprehensible system
>>> messages?
>>>
>>> Alternatively, does it instead look like random coloured junk?
>>> A selection of blurry lines that might change as you move the
>>> mouse, or as you type?
>>>
>>> Or something else? If so, what?
>>>
>>>
>>> #Paul
>> As I said it's broken and completely unintelligible. Whether the
>> guilty party was an elephant or a dog changes nothing.
>> The function keys all did nothing, I guess they must all work via
>> windows (originally). I've realised it looks like Mint is running it as
>> a dual screen setup, as there is a little patch on the primary screen
>> that goes grey when winkey is pressed, but nothing shows on the
>> external screen. The good news is I had a word tonight and have
>> persuaded them to pay for a new laptop screen, hopefully that will sort
>> it.
>> I may still need to reinstall from the lap, depending how well Mint
>> does or doesn't work. Mint sniffed the desktop hardware when installed
>> on a desktop, who knows whether the drivers it picked will also work on
>> the lap. It's fairly likely I'll need to find out how to do that later.
>> Thanks for your assistance. Life really was simpler in the 98 days.
>>
>
> You could still take pictures of the two screens, and
> post those. If you use the "Take Screenshot" function,
> that can take a picture of what the OS is trying to display.
> Whereas pictures shot with a digital point-and-shoot represent
> the physical damage (bad ball on NVidia BGA, bad LVDS/power cable,
> or bad panel).
>
> https://postimages.org/
>
> Sometimes you can figure out from the history of the model
> number alone, it's not worth working on them (no used motherboard
> would ever be better than the one you've already got).

That's not true. The plowcunt got his cpu resoldered.

> My Acer has an ally plate glued to the front, with all the
> model details on it.
>
> Some laptop GPUs, have four VRAM fitted to the top of the GPU.
> And if the defect pattern had spots or circles, it might be
> failed VRAM on the top of the GPU. ATI does that. The GPU on
> mine, being lower end, uses main memory for the frame buffer
> or 3D textures.

Animal <tabbypurr@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Alternatively, does it instead look like random coloured junk?
>> A selection of blurry lines that might change as you move the
>> mouse, or as you type?
>>
>> Or something else? If so, what?
>
> As I said it's broken and completely unintelligible. Whether
> the guilty party was an elephant or a dog changes nothing.

It *does* matter - can will suggest whether the problem is a
misconfiguration one (probably fixable), or a hardware one
(less fixable). Describe the problem, rather than labelling
it. Or not - your choice.

#Paul

"Dave W" <davewi11@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:9phh8hptpqie33vgppt4tm2tcj6e9np2nj@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 13 May 2022 14:25:31 +0100, John Rumm
>
> snip <
>
> You worry me saying Windows 8.1 is more trouble than it is worth.
> That's what I use on my laptop, and is the highest I'm prepared to go
> with Windows, to avoid forced updates. If it stops working I will
> revert to Linux Mint which I also have as an alternative, and say
> goodbye to all the Microsoft Word features I use.
>

+1
Except I use Libre Office & Classic Shell

--
Regards
wasbit

On Saturday, 21 May 2022 at 19:32:05 UTC+1, #Paul wrote:
> Animal <tabb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Alternatively, does it instead look like random coloured junk?
> >> A selection of blurry lines that might change as you move the
> >> mouse, or as you type?
> >>
> >> Or something else? If so, what?
> >
> > As I said it's broken and completely unintelligible. Whether
> > the guilty party was an elephant or a dog changes nothing.
> It *does* matter - can will suggest whether the problem is a
> misconfiguration one (probably fixable), or a hardware one
> (less fixable). Describe the problem, rather than labelling
> it. Or not - your choice.
>
> #Paul

I've answered this enough times & you're still not getting it. FWLIW it's worth, it's a configuration problem, the liquid crystals and glass are configured in all the wrong places.

On Friday, May 13, 2022 at 10:41:18 PM UTC+10, Animal wrote:
> Got a laptop to sort out, not sure where to ask for windows advice. The relevant comp groups look dead.
>
> I'll ask here, some may know what to do.
> Modern but single core laptop, hw specs are more than enough.
> Win version? I've yet to find out. I haven't used win for many years. It's clearly post-xp.
>
> History unknown & we have none of the passwords. System idles at almost 100% cpu, 1.7G ram. Biggest hogs are Antivirus (don't recognise the logo), antimalware (no idea whose), "service host: local system (17)", and there's various other junk I'd remove. Problem is everything's locked down.
> I couldn't find any way within win to uninstall, disable or delete anything. I put the hdd in a linux machine to delete stuff, but even with admin privileges not a thing is deletable. Don't have a copy of win for a clean install.
>
> How do I move forward here?
The old laptops used to have a battery moostly button cell, which is taken off and inserted once to reset passwords. Try your luck!