I have (rather had) an HP Pavilion zt1172 laptop purchased from PC world in UK. On December 24th 2005, the battery exploded and burnt part of the laptop and also the computer table. Fortunately we were not working on it at the time or there was a danger of personal injury. I'm not sure if the manufacturer's warranty will cover this anymore as the laptop was bought 3 yrs old. The laptop looks completly unusuable now.However, I just wanted to inform the general public that such an incident can occur and one must take precautions with HP Pavilion laptop batteries. I also checked the HP website and they have a "recall" for some batteries. So anyone who owns a HP notebook must check if your battery is covered in the recall.