Laptop no longer recognizes my battery!

So heres the deal. I have a Compaq Armada m700. It works great except that for some reason it no longer recognizes the battery (which I know to be working and FULLY charged). The laptop just does not see it there.

Recent happenings are as follows:

The battery latch broke... and the little metal piece that was between the plastic latch and whatever is underneath rattled a LOT on the CPU fan which is right there.... SO i pulled this piece out (the fan screen was busted up enough to do so).

Now it seems ever since that the laptop no longer recognizes the battery. I dont undertstand how this little piece could have effected it, as I would have thought the seating and touching the contacts for the battery would cause the computer to recognize it... apparently I'm mistaken.

I would really like to know if anyone has any ideas. I really don't want to take it in to be serviced so they can tell me nothing useful or else charge me an exorbinant amount.

Help would be appreciated. You can post here but I would love if you contacted me directly at URL as well.

Cheers

BUMP...

No one has any ideas?