Hello, Everyone, Newbie posting here.... I have seen this sort of question about this error message on some of the posts here but nothing that seems to directly relate to my query.

A couple days ago I mistakenly plugged my Dell Inspiron 1501's AC adaptor into an outlet that was not powered (long story, don't ask unless you want to hear it all), then turned on the iTunes to do some chores. Luckily I was right next to the laptop at the time, but I saw it go to black screen, it beeped and gave me the message that it was beginning hibernation.
I managed to get to a powered outlet and plugged it in, and it began to re-boot, but got an error message:
Battery canot be identified.
This system will be unable to charge this battery.
Press any key to continue.
I pressed the "any" key and it continued the boot fine, played more tunes and the chores got done. When I powered it down there were no problems.

Re-booting the next day, I got the same black screen/error. I pressed the "any" key again and all is fine. This has happened every single time I close down and re-open the laptop; I get the error, but it proceeds once I hit a key.

I bought this in January of 2007, so it's possible the battery may need to be replaced ($$$ - Ick!), but when I unplug the AC the battery icon shows that it has been charging fine regardless of what the error is telling me. It may or may not have been brought on by the computer completely powering out/auto-hibernating due to that unfortunate non-powered outlet it was attached to, but it may also have just been ready to happen at that moment anyway.

I sure hope someone can tell me what needs to be done; I do OK with computers but will admit that so much on this site is way over my head, so please be gentle! I'm running XP Pro, NO VISTA, thank you.

Any ideas for me? Thanks in advance for any help

Wow I've never seen that error message before. Maybe Pat can help us

It doesn't sound like the battery needs to be replaced that fast I have had them running fine for more than one year.

One question you need to look at is if the outlet was unpowered or wired improperly. If the hot wire (black) and the ground but not the neutral were wired in there could be issues. once you determine if the outlet was unpowered as opposed to mis wired then you can look at it being an issue with possibly the bios, or your adapter. If you eliminate that then its a motherboard issue.

Those are my thoughts, and I have a lot of experience with Dell hardware.