I renewed my battery to my laptop and mains battery after 2 years as it was showing a notification to renew it,I was happy to have my laptop back to normal. Until Christmas came and I only wanted a tree full of lights this year. As my tree had at least 6-8 sets of lights on,everything was great until my daughter found an empty plug socket and plugged the laptop into the mains as there was no charge to it. Then a Big Bang and all the lights blew and went out. I looked at the laptop and there was no life,light or charge to it. How can I check if it's one or both batteries..or something else more serious.help. Thanks chell

Millie lock, January 2015

Remove the battery from the laptop, connect the charger and turn in on.
If it don't turn on, then there are 2 possibilities:
1) The charget is blown and need to be replaced. (bad)
2) The laptop itself is fried. (Very bad)

Now, unplug the charger and put back one of the batteries.
Turn the laptop on.
If it don't come on, try the other battery.
If the laptop fails to turn on with BOTH batteryes AND the charger, it's dead.

It's hard drive is possibly intact. Remove it from the laptop and try connecting it to another computer to test it.
If the drive works with another computer, all your data are safe. Otherwise, I can only hope that you have a decent and current backup.

Electro, January 2015