My laptop(Inspiron E1505) failed to start app. 3 times this evening. Said no hard drive or bootable device. Tried to re-boot from windows xp disk to no avail. Eventually it asked for XP serice pack 2 disk which I don't have. I called Dell customer service and was told machine was old so probably needs new battery as this could cause start issues. I've never heard of this before. My battery is always charged and I almost never run it on batter alone as the screen is too dark and I've never been able to get it to be as light as when on AC.

My last machine was a Dell Inspiron and I ran it for years with a bad battery that wouldn't even hold a charge.

The short of it is this: If this is true I'll be very hesitant to buy a Dell again. If it's not true the guy lied to me and tried to sell me a batter for nothing. Another reason not to buy another Dell.

Anybody going to give me the truth and cut the corporate <ADMIN NOTE: Profanity removed as per TOU> ?????

Signed,

I'm not your <ADMIN NOTE: Profanity removed as per TOU> .