How do I find the CMOS battery in my laptop?

[kid]

My laptop has trouble starting up, even when its plugged into the mains.
I vaguely remember there being a message on startup that said something about the CMOS battery failed. The only way I get it to start is by pressing F2 when it is first turned on and then select F1 from the options offered. I don't really know what I'm doing but it seems to work for now.

I removed every screw in the back of my laptop earlier but still couldn't get the back off. I accidentally removed the hard drive but thankfully it didn't do any damage (I panicked that it might wipe everything from the memory!)

My laptop is a toshiba equium A210-171 if that makes any difference.

For tonight, I am going to leave the power adapter plugged in but remove the battery on the back of the laptop. I'm wondering if that will send the charge the CMOS battery? (I really have no idea about the insides of a laptop so its all guess work I'm afraid!)

The battery light on the front of the laptop keeps flashing, is that a good sign or not?

Removing a HD isn't going to do anything it's made to be changed.

I don't know what your laptop looks like most have individual access panels for upgrading the CPU, RAM etc without having to take the whole thing apart, the CMOS battery is a CR type battery normally a CR2032, it looks like a big watch battery about the size of a pound coin, it says on the top what type it is, they tend to last about 5 years or so.

I still havne't managed to fix it. I'm beginning to think I might as well give up n it and get DD a netbook instead. Its annoying as the laptop does work, sometimes!

Well I've had a little google and apparently Toshiba are a bunch of arses that like to hide it in odd places, the Equium L series apparently hides it under the LCD screen, all Toshiba laptops hide them in hard to reach places that require the whole thing to be pretty much dissembled to reach.

So you might want to get someone else to do it, or buy a new one thats not a Toshiba like an Asustek or something.

thanks for looking

I do still have the toshiba one as it sometimes work, but less and less frequently I've noticed.

To replace it, I bought a Dell laptop.