Using a laptop screen as a display for a different laptop.

What I've done in the past is remove the hard drive before shipping the laptop off. I put the hard drive in a case like http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=COP-CX-HDS2504AU&cat=HDD and can then use any other computer to access my files. Plus, I don't risk the repair techs messing up my hard drive while they're working.

You could always pop out the HD and hold on to it while the laptop is out for repairs. Since the issue is for the monitor, they won't need the HD in there to finish the job (or they could grab one of their own spares if they want to test a full boot). If you still want to back up the drive, you could purchase a USB dongle like http://www.blackbox.com/Store/Detail.aspx/USB-2-0-to-IDE-SATA-Combo-Adapter/IC661A. It's a handy thing to have, and you might find yourself using it for other purposes down the road (can read any IDE/SATA device, so you can hook up DVDRW's as well. More http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=usb+sata+ide&x=0&y=0)

For $15-$30 you can get http://www.google.ca/search?q=usb+to+sata that will help you out - you plug one end into a laptop drive, the other into a USP port on some other machine, and there's your stuff. I'd take katemonster's advice and pull the drive (be gentle, but it's not terribly difficult - just ground yourself right before you start to avoid static) and if you need the files off of it buy one of those. If it's that vintage of laptop it may still have a PATA drive in it, but most of the USB-SATA adapters I've seen will have a PATA port on them too.

Does anyone you know have a lcd or plasma TV? Most reasonably new TVs have VGA, DVI and/or HDMI inputs and should be about as easy to connect as an external monitor.

For the L300, you'll be fine with just a USB to SATA adapter as mhoye suggests. (IDE is an older connector type, in the event you wanted to attach the Satellite's HD to another computer) http://gallery.techarena.in/data/513/sata-ide_lg.jpg you can view the difference between the two types of data connectors. IDE is at the top, SATA (then red cable) at the bottom. Another option I just thought of, if the broken laptop is still booting up fully you could possibly connect to it over the network (peferrably wired). If you know the laptop's name, you can connect to it's C drive by clicking start/run and typeing the following on the older laptop: \\(newer laptop's name)\c$ omit the ('s You'll need to log in as the administrator of the L300 to continue: Username: (newer laptop's name)\(your account or the admin account) Password: (your password) Administrative shares are the drive letter followed by a $ symbol. This may be a little trickier to pull off, but is one alternative in case you don't want to take anything out of the laptop.

Around here, one can almost always pick up a free monitor off Craigslist as people are buying new LCD monitors.

If you can get all the laptops on to the same network you could just remote into the broken one from a working one - if you don't have Remote Desktop setup already then some free tools will connect, install the necessary client and then connect you (http://www.dameware.com/products/dmrc/ works this way, unfortunately it's not free any more). Once you have remote access, plug in a USB stick or whatever you're copying the files to into the broken laptop and do your backup with no network overhead.

I'm nthing keeping the hard drive. They don't need it, and many companies tell you to keep it when sending in a computer for repair.

Perhaps there's a digital video projector at your work/school that you could borrow? You should be able to treat it like an external monitor. Also, are you assuming that your friends-with-laptops don't have monitors, or have you actually asked them? Lots of people hook up their laptops to external monitors for the extra resolution.