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How to open Z-Star laptop

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Eratosthenes

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Nov 14, 2002, 10:22:02 AM11/14/02
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...and trouble shooting advice

A friend of a friend bought this old laptop used, and its been forwarded to
me for repair. It is a Zenith Z-Star, model number ZPD-6950-KI1, 50Mhz 486
CPU, around 3MB of RAM, Seagate ST9300AG 2.5" 250MB hard drive, Pheonix
BIOS, A486 version 1.04. The BIOS is pretty basic as it only has two pages.
This is the first time I have ever fiddled with a laptop. I want to try to
open the case. I've taken out every screw in the case and there is yet
something that seems to hold the two halfs of the case together. I don't
see right away how I can remove the keyboard. I have determined that the
hard drive has failed, the CMOS battery is dead or dying, or the Pheonix
BIOS is corrupt. A poster in another group has suggested getting an adapter
that will allow me to interface the HDD with my desktop PC, so as to
trouble shoot the laptop HDD. The HDD can be removed easily, but I have not
been able to open the case to access the CMOS battery or other internals.
The CMOS battery may not be the problem, because settings are stored. It
just doesn't seem to keep date and time properly. Later if I re-enter the
BIOS, the time will have reverted back to 1990. All other settings are
remembered. It may be a non-Y2K thing.

Thanks in advance

Read on if you want to know the whole story

The following was posted to comp.sys.laptops and alt.comp.hardware. This
documents so far what I have done to trouble shoot the problem:

"Apparently the hard drive has failed. The BIOS is unable to detect the hard
drive. No matter what settings are entered into the BIOS, the result is a
"fixed disk failure" message during POST. Also it informs me that I need to
run PheonixMISER, or PHDISK. I ran PHDISK and it tells me to fix the BIOS
because it doesn't see a hard drive. Setting the BIOS to defaults, which
puts hard drive detection on 'auto', does not seem to help. Setting the
drive up with user specified values, as per Seagate specifications,
does not work either. I downloaded a utility called 'diskinfo.exe' and ran
it from DOS, but it could only detect the RPM of the hard drive, and
returned 'error #4', whatever that means. I do believe that the disk drive
is spinning, it just will not boot. I cannot fdisk the drive, fdisk reports
that there is no fixed disk. Seagate diagnostics report that there is no
fixed disk. I have set the CPU to 'slow', disabled serial and parallel
ports, and done warm resets with ctrl-alt-del, to no avail. I have removed
the hard drive and re-installed it.

The only thing I have not tried, is replacing the CMOS battery, if it has
one. When I first turned this laptop on, got the error messages, and
entered setup, the date was set at 1999. But anything I set in the BIOS is
saved. If I power down, then power back up, my hard drive settings are
still there, but setting the time does not work. If I make the time
current, and power cycle, the time then reverts to 1990 when I go back into
BIOS setup. I tried to open the case and it proved to be difficult, so I
gave up trying to open the case. I replaced the six AA batteries which had
no effect. I am running the laptop with AC power anyway.

Can I put any 2.5" hard drive in this thing? I'm hoping to find a cheap
250MB laptop hard drive.

Could it be a corrupt BIOS? Are these old Pheonix BIOS's flaky?

Any suggestions would be appreciated."

Ed

Barry Watzman

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Nov 14, 2002, 4:08:44 PM11/14/02
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Look for screws inside the various compartments. Many laptops have both
screws and snaps holding them together.

Alan

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Nov 15, 2002, 4:02:35 AM11/15/02
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Ed


A Bulletin ZDS sent out at the time!.

Computer Models: Z-STAR 433 vl and vlp

Problem: When you start your machine, you get the message of an RTC
failure.

Cause: The RTC battery is out of charge

Solution:Remove the battery, open the coprocessor cover, change the
jumper JP1 from
mid position to position 1-2, reconnect the battery and the power
supply, restart the
computer and let it pass the POST tests. Reput the jumper in the
original position,

let the computer charge for 3 hours and upgrade to the latest BIOS
This problem will not occur with a BIOS rev 2.23C or higher


HTH

Alan

Alan

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Nov 15, 2002, 4:08:08 AM11/15/02
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ED

Sorry, Ignore mu last message.
You have a Z-Star ES not a Z-Star VLP!.

Alan

Alan

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Nov 15, 2002, 4:18:12 AM11/15/02
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Ed

I have mailed you the On-Line service manual for the Z-Star ES
3 .HLP files.

HTH

Alan

Alan

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Nov 15, 2002, 4:21:21 AM11/15/02
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Ed

I tried to mail you the Info. Your email address bounced!.

Alan

Geoff Ludwig

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Nov 15, 2002, 10:36:30 AM11/15/02
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Alan wrote:


Alan, thanks for trying that!

But I haven't gotten anything yet.

eddi...@xshentel.net remove the 'x' to send email.

Please try again.

Thanks
Ed

Geoff Ludwig

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Nov 15, 2002, 10:47:17 AM11/15/02
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Barry Watzman wrote:

> Look for screws inside the various compartments. Many laptops have both
> screws and snaps holding them together.
>
>

I have taken out every screw in the case, including screws in the
compartment for the 6 AA batteries, and screws inside the
floppy drive/rechargeable battery bay.

I sheepishly started to pry the two halves apart, but it still seemed kind
of tight. I'm also plastic-a-phobic. I want to get some more info before I
make any more attempts to dissassemble this laptop.

Thanks for your reply

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