It's possibly the biggest recall of batteries in the history of the electronics industry. 

The recall is aimed at batteries made by Sony for mobile workstations and XPS units in the Inspiron, Latitude and Precision ranges delivered between April 2004 and July 18 2006.

Visit this website  for further information on whether your Dell laptop is one of those affected by what could be the biggest recall of  batteries in the history of the electronic industry.

If your laptop is among those listed on the Dell website Dell suggests that you switch your laptop off, remove the battery and continue on mains power until Dell has replaced the battery.