Not Charging, No Power

Hi @smbdy

Addressing #3 first, you can retrieve the files from the hard drive by opening the laptop, removing the hard drive and inserting it into a docking station (examples only) and plugging that into an appropriate USB port in another PC and treating it as an external drive.

Here's a video that may help. At 1:39 minutes into the video, the HDD is seen in the bottom left corner of the laptop.

Note: To avoid any further problems from occurring, always disconnect the battery from the motherboard as soon as it is accessible before doing any further work inside the laptop. You don't have to remove the battery, just disconnect it.

Regarding #1 & #2 you could always do a power refresh just in case it is a corrupted BIOS. Worth a try as the laptop is open anyway.

Disconnect the battery from the motherboard, unplug the RTC coin cell battery from the motherboard (seen to the right of the fan also at 1:39 minutes into the video) then press and hold the laptop's Power button for a full 30 seconds and then release it. Reconnect the RTC battery, reconnect the main battery, connect the charger and check if it turns on.

If still not it could be a faulty battery or a motherboard problem so more testing would be required to determine what it is.