# HP 601 Battery Error at Bootup



## carrie640 (Jun 11, 2002)

ACK! I suspected something was going wrong when my laptop's charge rapidly was draining and now, I have this 601 error that is popping up at bootup. 

Could this be causing the charge to rapidly drain or would that be the external battery? Maybe they BOTH are bad? The laptop is still under warranty (I swear I bought a lemon...everything is going wrong with this thing), but what happens when the internal battery actually goes? Do I lose everything?


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## TriggerFinger (Jan 30, 2008)

According to this it could be caused by a bad battery. 601 means a bad primary battery. It may also mean it has low charge and it cannot power ON a laptop by itself. 

I am not so sure what you are referring to as 'external battery'.

I suggest you try powering ON after the battery is fully charged.


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## carrie640 (Jun 11, 2002)

TriggerFinger said:


> According to this it could be caused by a bad battery. 601 means a bad primary battery. It may also mean it has low charge and it cannot power ON a laptop by itself.
> 
> I am not so sure what you are referring to as 'external battery'.
> 
> I suggest you try powering ON after the battery is fully charged.




Ooops....I guess I should've been clearer!! External meaning the one that is on the bottom of the laptop...the one that is long and black and can easily be taken out at anytime. 

The battery rapidly discharges when I unplug the power. And sometimes when it may say 100% charged, when I unplug it, it drops instantly to maybe 73% or whatever random number. It's bizarre! 

I am just concerned that I will lose everything if it "goes out" (internal battery) before being replaced. 

The 601 msg comes up every single time I boot...plugged in and even appearing to be at 100% 

Thanks for the input!!!


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## TriggerFinger (Jan 30, 2008)

I hope we are talking about the same 'battery' here. Anyways... if you are just asking if you will lose your 'data' that are already on the HDD because the battery failed... then IMHO... no, you won't lose them. You may need a new battery (AFAIK), based on your description of the problem. That is the battery that can power ON the laptop even if the laptop is unplugged from the mains... I know you know what I mean.


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