Question : Problem: TOSHIBA LAPTOP DISPLAY PROBLEM - URGENT

My colleague has a Toshiba Laptop M30 using XP which has been working fine until now.

Yesterday large black lines appeared  on the screen and the the text appeared white and blocky making it COMPLETELY illegible.

I tried connecting it to an external monitor but the same lines and text appeared on the new monitor - so the problem appears to be within the laptop itself rather than the monitor.  I have tried starting it in safe mode but this does not help either.

Because everything is so fuzzy, I cannot even see well enough to select and copy files over to an external drive.

Could this be a virus or is it more likely to be a hardware problem?  Any help appreciated

Answer : Problem: TOSHIBA LAPTOP DISPLAY PROBLEM - URGENT

I agree that this laptop's video card is gone, which means an expensive motherboard replacement if you want to fix it.  You can remove the drive and mount it in a USB enclosure and read the contents that way.  Get an enclosure for 2.5" drives.