Lenovo, citing a fire hazard risk, has officially started a worldwide recall for a number of battery packs featured in various versions of its laptops. In total, approximately 34,500 battery packs are affected in the United States and 2,900 in Canada. While it's unclear just how many batteries in total might be affected by the recall – or what the price tag associated with said worldwide recall will ultimately be — Chinese officials have commented that approximately 117,000 batteries are affected in that country alone.

The batteries in question either came with or were sold as replacement units for ThinkPad laptops of the following designations: The Edge 11, 13 and 14 series, the T410, T420, T510 and W510 series, and the X100e, X120e, X200, X201 and X201s series.

If that happens to be a laptop that you own, you'll want to take a look at the battery itself – specifically, the white sticker below the battery's bar code – and see if it contains one of the following part numbers (starting around the fourth digit or so on said sticker): 42T4695, 42T4711, 42T4798, 42T4804, 42T4812, 42T4822, 42T4828, 42T4834, 42T4840, or 42T4890.

You can also use Lenovo's website to automatically determine if your battery is one of the ones that needs to be replaced.

PC Magazine