DELL Inspiron 5000 battery replacement

Our trusted Dell laptop's battery had started showing signs of end of life so decied to go about replacing it. Here are the steps that I followed. 

The first step is to switch off the laptop completely and turn it upside down and start removing the screws from the back with a small philips head or hex screw driver. The 3 screws at the top are slightlight longer than the ones on the side or bottom. Screw #4 and #5 are way smaller. Total 11 in all. 

The next step is to slide the DVD drive out and then there are two more small chrome colored screws here which have to be removed. These are tricky to remove so you will have to find the correct screw driver bit to remove these without stripping them.

Then slowly run a pick or non abrassive object like a credit card or something along the edge to remove the back which is snap fit. 

Interior looks like above,. Next step is to remove the 4 screws which hold the battery as shown below. There is a cable that connects the battery to the mother board. Slide the white connector tab as shown which is connected to the mother board.   

My replacement battery which I ordered on amazon did not come with the cable so I had to remove the cable off the old battery and attach it to the new one. In order to remove the connector from the battery, slide the connector in the direction as shown in the above image and then carefully attach it to the new one. 

Now is also a good time to gently clean the dust off. 

Re-attach the other end of the connector to the mother board and then start with putting the screws back in the reverse order. So first attach the battery to the device with the 4 screws. Then snap fit the back plastic cover. Put back the 2 chrome screws near the DVD drive bay and then put back the remaining 11 screws.