White laptop screen when laptop is on

Dell Inspiron 1318
Windows Vista Home Premium
Laptop bought in January 2009

Last night, my laptop screen flickered for a moment - I was on the Internet and the fonts went a bit fuzzy. A few seconds later, the entire laptop screen went white.

I did some Googling and found that this is probably due to overheating. I have used my laptop on soft surfaces and I know that it isn't good for the health of the laptop. The screen is still white when I switch it on now. Close to the fan, there is also a burning smell - kind of like burning metal or plastic (which makes sense if this is because of overheating).

At this point, I'm not too concerned with my laptop itself but I was wondering if there is a way to access files on my laptop? If I connected an external monitor to it (either another laptop or a desktop), would it work? I was thinking of using a cable and then using the monitor to enable file sharing or maybe even plug in a USB and then use the other monitor to copy files onto the USB on my laptop. Would any of that work?

Also, if I send this off to a technician and get them to fix the screen, will I lose my files? I don't think this is a hard drive problem but I honestly don't know.

Thank you so much in advance.


(Sorry if this is in the wrong area of the forums. Please move it to the correct section if need be.)

By any means, you can still recover your files with either trying to use an external monitor or use a usb to sata/ide external enclosures.

Hi,

My name is Ashutosh Mishra

The problem you are facing can be caused due to LCD failure.
However, as your priority is to connect an external monitor and back up the data, you would need a VGA cable. The VGA port on your Inspiron1318 is on the left side of the chassis.
After connecting the cable to the Monitor, you need to press FN+F8 keys on the keyboard to transfer display to the monitor.
In this way you can see the display on the monitor if everything is fine with in the computer.
However, in case you are still not able to see any display on the monitor, then it might be a hardware failure.
To diagnose the same, Please follow these steps:
Turn off the computer.
Disconnect all the peripherals including the external monitor.
Hold the FN key and the power button simultaneously down for 5 sec to initiate the diagnostics.
The diagnostics will run and it will give error message on the screen or beep codes if the screen is faulty.
You can also refer to the following link for the steps as well: http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/kcs/document?&docid=DSN_300428&isLegacy=true

Please reply back with the error code or the no. of beep codes that you get in the diagnostics.

Hope this helps resolve your issue.

Thanks and Regards,
Ashutosh Mishra

jhayz - Hopefully you're right!

Ashotosh Mishra - Thank you SOOO much for your help! I am planning to get a VGA cable either today or tomorrow and will post when I know what is going on.

Remove the hard drive and use a USB external enclosure and connect it to another working PC. Meanwhile you can take the laptop (w/out the hard drive) to a reputable repair shop for the monitor problem if the VGA to external monitor is not positive.

I hope it doesn't come to taking out the hard drive myself but hopefully I can get the VGA cable tomorrow and see what happens.

Thanks again for your help, jhayz!

Sorry to double post, but I just wanted to report that the VGA cable WORKED! It took me a while to realise that my desktop already had a VGA cable connected to it (stupid on my part) and I just tried it out and it worked.

Thanks to the both of you SOO much for your help!