I have deformed one of the screws around the battery and need advice.

Thank you very much! However, I was wondering, and I know it should be highly non-recommendable, but given I have to replace the battery, can I use a blade to cut off the plastic on the sides of the screw?

@Mohammad Omar

You could try but in doing so you may put too much pressure on the plastic and I don't know what's underneath it.

If you have a steady hand and a slow drill it may be easier to use a drill with a drill bit the size of the screwhead and drill the head off the screw.

Once the head is removed the plastic should lift up and off and you can unscrew the rest of the screw using pliers.

Be sure to remove any metal shards produced by drilling out the screwhead by gently vacuuming the board etc so that there is no potential for electrical problems to occur by having little bits of metal scattered around the area.

As always when working inside laptops, disconnect the battery cable from the motherboard as soon as you can before doing anything else! The motherboard always has some power on it even when the laptop is off. The power button is not a power isolating button.

Thank you so so much for your time and advice! I am very grateful indeed! Stay Blessed!