Computer guru needed

Good morning, and happy 4th!
I have an older Toshiba laptop that I have been planning to take on my upcoming cruise. It has Windows Vista operating system. The battery was shot so I purchased a new one. When I have it plugged in and using it, the battery icon says it has 0% available and is charging. But it has been two days and hasn't charged a bit.
What am I doing wrong?
Thanks, my trip begins in two days and I would like to have this available...
C

ya know by definition:

GURU=General Understanding Relatively Useless

Could be the charge circuit on the motherboard or a doa battery

FF

Is the battery getting good contact?

Is this a genuine Toshiba battery or a semi-unbranded replacement, or even worse, could it be counterfeit? All these modern batteries are what can be called "smart" that is, they all have a small processor board inside which "talks" to the main device

A good example is my Canon camera bodies, I have two each 40D and 7D bodies, and about 4 batteries for them. Canon batteries are pretty expensive, and there are third party batteries which are cheaper

BUT TWO of these batteries were what amounts to junk

One of them "works OK" but the status indicator, like yours, does not function

Worse, one of them, which is supposed to be used on its own charger, failed after one whole charge cycle. This last "system" was bought through Adorama who is supposed to be a legitimate supplier. Even though they refunded this, it really pissed me off that they would market such junk.

In your case, other than inspecting for damage and corrosion to the contact pins, you could see if you could get a warranty exchange on the battery and get someone to confirm that your new battery is supposed to "work as OEM."

There's some small chance that the Winhozed Shista applet is AFU and the usuall "reinstall it."

Only other suggestion is to go to the online support site for your computer.

Thanks, it is a "no-name" battery that I purchased off ebay. I will shut it down, pull it and re-install and see what happens.
C

To me, (I'm NOT a GURU) but make sure the plug is plugged ALL the way in, and making good contact. IF nothing, to that end, then yep, yer battery is toast! You'll need a new one (but, you knew that, but I just had to say it)

IF that isn't doing it, then the charger you got, isn't the correct one!

If you do not know for absolute certain that this is a genuine OEM battery, I would suspect the battery, "end of story."

Here's my experience with a fake counterfeit (advertised as real) Canon charger. I wrote a VERY VERY rough email to the seller and told him he had 24 hours to refund my money, before I contacted the State Attorney General and a few other people. I had my refund in about an hour

This POS actually had a WEIGHT inside to make if feel "real."

http://forum.manualfocus.org/viewtopic.php?id=16970

There was/is a tech article on the Toshiba website about no charge with a new battery and if I remember right it was specifically about problems like that when not using an OEM battery.

Right down to the battery internal electronics like Del mentioned.

Thanks again guys. I have gone through the troubleshooting sequence and it indicates a bad battery. I have the old one in the freezer to see if it might revive it some.
C

sometimes new batteries have have plastic coating over the terminals you may want to check that........