Broke A Laptop Screen

Is there a way to have it default to an external display, even during the boot process?

 

If you have a spare monitor or can lend one then you can use the machine as normal, plug the monitor into the vga port and press the f button that has a symbol of a screen on it (f12 on mine). You should see the boot process on the display automaticaly, wether or not if it was set as default, as you have not told us what OS version you are using I can not give you the run through of how to make the external default.

iain.t :major

 

Pretty hard to answer that without a clue as to the maker or model number of the notebook. So my answer would be, depends on the capabilities of that specific model notebook. I would say, check your manual. If you don't have one, download it from the notebook maker's website for that model.

My "guess" would be you could, though you may not be able to see the boot process until the video signal is ported out to any connected monitor. And that process may not happen until a bit into the boot process.

Most notebooks toggle graphics to the notebook monitor, both monitors with same display, and desktop spread across both monitors. If you set it to both monitors display the same image, then you don't need to worry about Windows settings.