My old laptop has the black screen. A member here suggested using a flashlight up close. That works, so I can move the cursor around and make it work. Is there a way to drag all of my docments and emails from the dead computer and put it in my new one? I mean a simple way. I am not computer savy. Thanks.

Well, if it's just the backlight that went bad on your monitor, and you can see it by holding a light to it, that's a good sign telling you that data is recoverable.

I would hook a regular monitor up to it, it should have an external display port on the back, just a standard DB15 monitor connector. To get it to work while the computer is on, you have to enable the screen. On most laptops, this is done by holding the function key (specific to each laptop, to a point) down, and then find the button that has a picture of a monitor on it, and press it, it will probably be a shared key with one of the numbers, or F keys. You can usually tell what keys are the special Function keys because they are colored red, or blue on the letering and the icons to seperate them from the regular keyboard layout.

If it has a cd burner or USB you could either burn the stuff to CD or copy the stuff to a USB drive. The USB drive would probably be the easiest solution plug it in then drag and drop your files on it. BTW, the external monitor is an excellent idea.

Thanks for the ideas.