the display on my laptop is garbled when it boots to windows xp. tried to boot it up with msdos and the display is ok. tried an external monitor and the display is ok, too. did all the help and support advised but it didn't fix anything. any help is greatly appreciated.

Windows version? Make and model of laptop? Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling the video adapter drivers or replacing the driver with an updated version?

windows xp. compaq presario 1200us. have not tried install and uninstall. but tried to update driver. there is no update version. have trident video accelerator cyberblade i1 as display adapter.