Is it possible to make a windows laptop default to a Linux distro without seeing the BIOS?

[Nerdtendo]

Long story short, the screen on my laptop broke off. It still works fine-- in fact, I'm typing this with it right now while hooked up to a monitor. I have a new one coming for school and am considering retiring this to a closet in my home and running it as a perpetual minecraft server. However, I would like to get rid of the Windows bloat and switch to Linux (which I have never used myself). The issue is, I can't even see the BIOS to set up a distro (probably Debian), because the HDMI port doesn't work until the OS boots up. Is there anyway to do this without being able to see the BIOS?

[Eigenvektor]

Remove the laptop's drive and plug it into another machine (as the only drive). Install Linux. Put it back into the notebook. This should work in most cases.

[ahuckphin]

You can try to disassemble the laptop until the point you can disconnect the broken laptop screen from the motherboard. It may at this point allow you to view the BIOS through an external monitor. 

[wasab]

18 hours ago, Eigenvektor said:

Remove the laptop's drive and plug it into another machine (as the only drive). Install Linux. Put it back into the notebook. This should work in most cases.

Very smart work around