Can you use a laptop plugged into a tower and see all programs on the tower

[WorldNumberOne]

on the tower hard drive.

something has happened to my daughters monitor . when we boot up and turn the monitor on all we get is " no signal " .

i've reconnected the cords , tried another cord. nothing.

no clue what has happened.

i have an old lap top she can use in the mean time.

would like her to have access to all the stuff on the tower hard drive while using the lap top.

i'm sure it can be done . how ?

 

[juice]

Buy a hard drive enclosure. Take the old hard drive out, stick it in the enclosure, the enclosure then connects to your laptop via USB cable.
You should be able to see everything on the old hard drive this way.

 

[t3a]

on the tower hard drive.

something has happened to my daughters monitor . when we boot up and turn the monitor on all we get is " no signal " .

i've reconnected the cords , tried another cord. nothing.

no clue what has happened.

i have an old lap top she can use in the mean time.

short answer is no, you can't use a lap top as a replacement monitor.

If you don't want to buy an external hard drive enclosure, it isn't hard to find decent sized (17") monitors free. If it didnt cost so much to ship, I'd send you one.

 

[WorldNumberOne]

short answer is no, you can't use a lap top as a replacement monitor.

If you don't want to buy an external hard drive enclosure, it isn't hard to find decent sized (17") monitors free. If it didnt cost so much to ship, I'd send you one.

so youre thinking i've burned out the monitor i have ?

it turns one and says the no signal thing. so i'm thinking it still works .

maybe not.

 

[t3a]

so youre thinking i've burned out the monitor i have ?

it turns one and says the no signal thing. so i'm thinking it still works .

maybe not.

I think I misread your initial question - I was just saying you can't plug a laptop into your PC and use it like a monitor. The "no signal' could be a bunch of different things. Are you sure the PC is booting up? You may hear the fan running but that doesnt mean the PC has booted up. You really need to have some spare parts to test things out.

If you have an extra monitor, I would start with that just because its easy to disconnect. If it says no signal, yes, its not burned out but the monitor cable or connector could be bad. Have you disconnected the monitor previously? If the pins on the connector are bent when you plug it back in you that could give you no signal.

 

[t3a]

another thing you can try is to network the two PCs , assuming the tower PC is really booting up and both have network cards in them - not modems, the jack would be a little bit bigger.

You would have to tell us what operating system is running on each to do that