Dan Christensen wrote:
> One of the batteries in my wife's Dell Latitude D810 is stuck in place.
> It doesn't budge a bit when I try to pull it out. It's the battery that
> fits in the right-hand-side, where you can also put in a CD drive. The
> case is bulging down a bit under the battery, and this might be causing
> it to grab the battery from the sides. I'm not sure what is causing the
> bulging, but it might be that the battery is doing this. It's an old
> battery that hasn't worked in a while.

If it's just a mechanical problem, and if you don't otherwise need the
drive bay, then the best option would be to just ignore it.

But you also said that you suspect it could be the battery bulging out
and thus preventing removal. That is a lot more cause for concern.
Lithium based batteries have the nasty habit of catching fire when their
case fails. And metal fires are _very_ hot. Much hotter than anything
else you would ever have tried to burn. Attempts to extinguish metal
fires with anything other than a Class D extinguisher (e.g. attempts to
use water or CO2) are likely to only make things worse, possibly
resulting in explosive combustion. The fumes tend to be quite toxic, too.

So, if you are at all considering that the battery's case might be
failing, you really want to make sure it gets removed from your laptop
and disposed of properly. Do _not_ put it into regular trash, as you
could start a fire in your trash can or in the garbage truck. Instead,
call your local garbage service and inquire where the closest place is
that collects broken lithium batteries. These things can be quite
dangerous when handled incorrectly.

> Any suggestions for how to remove it? Would taking the laptop apart
> help?

Taking the laptop apart might work. But if I recall correctly, you would
want to remove the bottom part of the laptop's case, but unfortunately
that's really the one thing that holds everything together.

So, rather than you being able to just unscrew the bottom and remove the
battery, you instead have to unscrew the top, remove the screen, remove
the keyboard, remove the graphics card, remove the motherboard, and then
get to the drive bay.

It is possible to do this yourself, but you might feel more confident to
ask Dell to send a technician. Also, if you tell them about the failing
battery, you might be able to negotiate that they do this for free. In
my experience, Dell is quite concerned about catastrophic failure of
their hardware -- although the only time I had to deal with something
like this was while the laptop was still under warranty. If necessary,
escalate your phone call to a supervisor.


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