Shane.W,

Without appropriate test equipment the best way to check the battery would be to find a friend who has a Mini 10 and see if the battery will charge in his/her Mini 10.  I doubt seriously it is a BIOS problem.  I would most likely suspect that your DC power connector on the motherboard is broken, allowing the unit to run directly from the AC Adapter, but not run from the battery.   The DC power connector is the Achilles Heel of laptops and notebooks.  While the connector is fairly inexpensive for a Mini 10, the labor is not.  Most laptop repair shops charge at least $100 to completely disassemble the laptop, remove and replace the DC connector, reassemble and test the unit.  This repair should be done only by a qualified laptop technician.

If you can not located your manual for the Mini 10, one is available for download from here: http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/my_systems_info/manuals?c=us&cs=555&l=en&s=biz&SystemID=INSPIRON1010

Hope this info helps.

Tony

Go into BIOS setup - check the section where it list the AC power adapter and battery.

BIOS should report of there's an AC adapter and battery present. Depending on your
machine it could also report the AC adapter type and battery manufacture details.

If it's not listed in BIOS - most likely the problem is hardware related.