Problem Toshiba

[RobH]

A friend has me looking at his Toshiba A205-S5878 that has a display problem,and I just cant put my finger on the problem.Once turned on, the display goes gray and never shows anything just the backlight.
I plugged a monitor into the external VGA and the display is working on the monitor, but not on the laptop,sometimes it comes up full desktop sometimes without the start bar ,but the display comes up on the monitor but not on the laptop itself.
The first time I booted it the touch pad worked, but since that first time, it quit as well so I have been checking the problem out using an external mouse.
Of course Device manager shows the onboard Intel 945 graphics are working properly,same as the touchpad, but no display.
My thoughts were originally the mainboard BUT the secondary display works so I think that thought is a washout.My second thought might be a problem with the OS,but cant see how the driver might work with an external monitor but not the main display.
I thought there might be a physical break in one of the connections from the body to the display maybe pinched or broken wire in or near a hinge-BUT it has a web cam that seems to work without problem.
It is a standard Toshiba with 2 gig memory, windows Vista-nothing fancy..any ideas?