Accidentally Disabled Monitor Vista

[colinp9999]

Hello. Unfortunately when trying to fix a problem I accidentally disabled my monitor OR drivers. I was trying to disable my second temporary but unfortunately disabled my main monitor. What I did was go to display settings, click on the monitor, click properties, and in one of the tabs i chose disable. stupidly when prompted i chose ok. i've seen a similar solution for XP although i dont want to try it in vista in case it doesnt work. or makes the problem worse. I have a password set up, although only one user, so i know to load the computer, start normally, and then wait, before enering my password. again, i should wait until windows has properly loaded. i have no programs that start automatically. can you please tell me what to type in order to access display setings and enable the monitor again?

apologies for the poor spelling. i borrowed my friends laptop and it's not easy to type with/

many thanks,,colin

 

[kimsland]

Start in Safe Mode by pressing F8 key before Windows starts loading (basically as the computer is starting up)

Go to Safe Mode, and log on to your account
Go to Device Manager (Start->Run-> Devmgmt.msc)
Then right click on any disabled entry and then enable it. Note you can even uninstall your Video driver here too, if enabling doesn't work in Normal Mode

Restart normally to Normal Mode

 

[colinp9999]

thanks for your reply.
The only problem with this is that I cannot see what I am doing as I cannot see the screen. both the HDTV and the PC monitor are blank.
I know that the HDTV is set up as the second monitor but it is currently disabled also.
I know that I simply need to get to display settings, select monitor 2 (hdtv) and click "extend to this monitor" (or something similar) and the "this is my main monitor" although it's difficult to do this when i cannot see the screen.

also, I have tried starting in safe mode, but when it gets to a certain point it doesn't continue - even when left for 10 minutes. I think it gets stuck on a file "crcsystem" or something like this.

thanks again, colin.

 

[SNGX1275]

Try VGA Mode rather than safe mode, the entire purpose of VGA mode is to load everything normally, but with a crap resolution (640x480 or 800x600).

I would have thought safe mode would have worked, but that is sort of an overkill, VGA mode is all that was necessary. Although, because safe mode failed, you may have more issues than a simple disabled video something.

I suppose if all else fails you can repair your installation with the Vista disk.

 

[colinp9999]

Up and running again Many thanks everyone.