So I’ve had a new computer for a few months. We finally decided to pull apart my old computer and pull out the hard drive (to see what we could get off it) and swap the wireless card from the old computer to the new (I mostly use wired, but wireless has come in handy on occasion).
So we get everything installed.
And my husband plugs back in all the various cables into the computer for me.
Including the HDMI cable that’s connected to the TV that we’d used as a 2nd monitor (to play games on) on my old computer. I’d not actually gotten around to setting up the duel monitor set up on the new computer yet, wasn’t a high priority. Remember this bit of information. Its important.
So we turn on the computer, and it boots, and it shows the desktop background image…..and doesn’t load the desktop. wtf?
Power down, power up into safe mode. Safe mode loads fine.
Ok, power off, unplug the wireless card, try again. It loads the desktop image and not the desktop.
Power off, unplug the old hard drive, try again. It loads the desktop image and not the desktop.
Power off. Think for a minute, plug back in the old hard drive, force computer to boot off it. It loads fine, no drivers for anything, but it loads fine.
Power off, reset it to load from the new hard drive, it loads the desktop image and not the desktop.
Reboot into safe mode, restore from a 3 day old restore point. Rebooting loads the desktop image and not the desktop.
Run Startup Repair….you get the idea. By this time we’re both swearing.
Unplug all the cables, start unplugging and replugging the video card, the hard drives……
And a light bulb goes off. I tell my husband, when you plug everything back in don’t plug in the HDMI cable to the TV. And he looks at me….
Sure enough, plug back in everything, except that HDMI cable. Desktop loads fine.
Its defaulting that “extra monitor” as the default monitor, instead of my regular one. Turning the TV input to the 2ndary HDMI cable shows my desktop when its plugged into my computer.
*sigh*
(yes, I know how to fix that, its ok)
(the old hard drive has passed every scan I’ve thrown at it, so still no idea why the old computer died, but hey, I have a spare hard-drive now!)
At least you figured it out… I screwed that particular pooch doing a double monitor set up with only ONE monitor on (the secondary) and it took me TWO DAYS to figure out what the hell was going on… LOL
Yah, I can see myself doing that!
At least in this case, as soon as I unplugged the the TV it recognized that there was only one monitor plugged in and defaulted back to that!