Battery at 0%, everything else fine

I have a 2007 VGN-SZ430N and it's in mint condition aside from the battery. I have Ubuntu 12.04 installed on it and the battery is reading 0% and won't seem to charge.

Leading up to this incident, I had no problems with the battery and it could power the laptop for about 90 minutes. Sure, it was getting old, but it was still able to hold a charge. Then a few months ago, we had a blackout and the battery discharged from 90% to 10% while I waited for the power to come back on. Finally the power did come back on, and the laptop was plugged into the wall via the company provided AC/DC adapter when this happened.

I'm not sure that this was the turning point in the life of the battery; is it possible the power surge could have killed the battery? The AC/DC adapter itself works fine and I am able to power on the laptop and use it normally.

The battery light is flashing as per the manual, indicating that the battery is being charged. But when I unplug the AC/DC adapter from the computer, it shuts off immediately.

What are my options? I'm hesitant to buy a third party battery and original ones are no longer available. Ideally I'd like to buy an original Sony battery but I have no idea where to look. I've also heard of batteries "coming back to life" sometimes and then proceeding to function normally. It just seems to me like the battery should be okay; if the laptop is okay, and the AC/DC adapter is okay, did the battery really get cooked?

gman934 Newbie

Primes Notebook Deity