Replaced broken LCD screen and the new one has issues

Ok folks, I'm having a really bad time with this. I've cracked the screen on my laptop - Dell Vostro 1700 and I got a replacement one off eBay. First they sent me a panel that doesn't fit (ie. the flat connector is different!), then they sent me the second one which seems to fit, but now that I've connected everything I'm seeing some serious display problems:

At bootup time the entire display is squashed into the middle, it's almost like watching a widescreen movie. Top quarter and bottom quarter of the screen are black, and the contents are squashed into the middle but are entirely visible.

When I enter Windows however the image is shown only on the left half of the screen, while the right half remains black. What makes it weirder is that the left part is actually showing the right side of the desktop, in a sort of interlaced mode, vertically only every second line is shown.

Has anyone seen this before?

I don't know if this is something that I can fix, or if a different display is needed. Any help is more than welcome!!!