I have a Toshiba Tecra M2 notebook, running WinXP SP3. Recently, the cursor froze and a black screen ensued; eventually got it to start in safe mode - but thoughtlessly disabled the VGA driver and now the reboot will not get beyond the list of drivers page. F8 likewise leads only to a black screen (which sometimes contains shifting and fading shades of dark and light).

I read that resetting the CMOS will cause the default settings to resume, and wonder if this might work with the Tecra M2, and how to go about it if so.

Or is there some other way of re setting the disabled VGA driver?

It would be nice to get my life back, as this is an all-consuming problem.
Thanks for any help, in advance.

I suggest first booting the machine from either ultimate boot cd, ultimate boot cd
for windows, or one of many linux livecd's.
There is plenty of info on how to make the bootable cd's that you can download.
Many live linux cd's can be installed on a usb flash drive as well, using linux live
usb creator. It doesn't erase any files on the flash drive.

Anyhow, the point of doing so, is to see if your monitor and video card still work at all.
It would be ideal to use ultimate boot cd for windows. With that, you can run windows
based programs/utilities and also modify settings of your current windows installation.

Building the ubcd4win is fairly easy. You need to download the ubcd4win maker from the
ubcd4win web site UBCD for Windows
You will need a windows xp install disc
and of course a blank cd-r and cd writer.
The instructions given on the web site are easy to follow, and like I mentioned, it is easy.

Give it a try and report your mileage here.

I would suggest restoring the registry from the command prompt. You may still have your original problem, but it will restore any settings changes you have made. The following link shows how:
How to recover from a corrupted registry that prevents Windows XP from starting
Then, download and install any updated video drivers. Be careful, however, Laptops and notebooks tend to have very proprietary hardware and software, so go to the company that built it.

dont go into safemode
reinstall your drivers normally
solved