An acquaintance of mine has an NEC Versa E600 laptop. He wishes to
remove the battery. There is a small slide catch which appears to be
designed to release the battery but even with this catch at the
furthest extent the battery can only be withdrawn from it?s slot by
about 1cm. Pulling very hard does not shift the battery further. I
have searched for online manuals etc without success. Can anybody out
there let us know how to remove the battery from this Laptop?
Thanks in advance.

patasys-ga:

Thank you for your invitation to post my comment as the Answer. I
posted it as a comment as I too was not able to locate any online
manuals to refer you to. I'm glad that my recount of my own
experiences with an older NEC laptop helped!

To recap:

NEC's decision to use an enclosed battery slot makes it relatively
easy for any physical warping of the battery due to the self-generated
heat during charging, can result in the battery case and the laptop
case interfering with each other and rendering it almost impossible to
remove the battery.

Your idea to loosen the screws is a good one, but unfortunately is not
a practical approach for your friend to use every time. Since there is
no obvious warping of the battery itself, I would suggest taking a
close look inside the battery bay to see if there are any obvious
parts sticking out that can easily jam against the battery when
everything heats up.

I'm happy to have helped!

Regards,

aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher

Thanks aht-ga - it looks like distortion through heat was the cause of the issue.

petasys-ga:

The problem you've described is more common than you might expect,
with laptop designs where the battery slides into a 'bay' or 'slot'
like the NEC designs. Actually, I can even remember the exact same
problem happening with an old NEC laptop I used in the early 90's, I
guess they haven't bothered to change to an open battery bay like IBM,
Dell, and Toshiba tend to use.

NEC does not have a user manual or field service manual available
online. However, you are correct that the slide latch is the only
latch designed to hold in the battery. However, the battery itself has
most likely expanded and/or twisted due to internally-generated heat
during charging. So, now some part of the battery's casing is
interfering with some part of the battery bay walls, preventing it
from sliding out. This is what happened to me over ten years ago. The
solution was mainly one of patience and a bit of brute force.

First, I'm assuming that you've tried to slide out the battery with
the laptop upside-down so that you can slide the latch. Since there
are two on you, have one person hold the laptop right-side-up and
slide the latch, and the other person should try sliding the battery
in and out to determine which side of the battery case is jamming
against the bay walls. Try this with the laptop in every orientation,
and try wiggling the battery to twist it and potentially disengage the
interference. Ultimately, it's brute force, so just be careful to
avoid deforming or cracking any of the plastic.

Good luck!

aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher

aht-ga.  
Thanks very much for that. Failed to manipulate the battery out but
loosening the screws for the case near the battery let us get the
battery out. No noticable distortion of the battery,  but some slight
distortion was most likely the underlying cause.
You posted as a comment rather than as an answer, I feel you have
earned your fee so please re-post as an answer if you wish.
Thanks