Introduction
Use this guide to replace the hard drive in the Acer Aspire One ZG5. After removing the motherboard, the hard drive is easy to replace.
What you need
-
-
Turn the netbook upside down with the battery at the top, facing away from you.
Ask FixBot
-
-
-
Unlock the battery by sliding the switch located near the left hinge to the left "unlocked" position.
-
-
-
Slide the latch located on the opposite hinge from the lock while pushing the battery up.
-
-
-
Gently loosen the two Phillips #0 screws in the small panel that covers the wireless card.
-
-
-
Remove the single 3.9 mm Phillips #1 screw from the bottom left of the wireless card.
-
-
-
Gently lift up the left side of the wireless card and slide the card out of its socket.
-
-
-
Turn the netbook over and open the display so that the keyboard is facing you.
-
-
-
There are three tabs located on the top of the keyboard.
-
Start with the spudger pointing towards the display and pry up to push each tab off the keyboard.
-
As you move to the next tab, ensure the previous tab doesn't reset itself.
-
-
-
Lift top of keyboard up. If it doesn't lift easily, there may be tabs on the sides - use the tool to ease them aside and/or shift the keyboard from side to side.
-
-
-
-
Disconnect the ribbon by lifting the black plastic hinge and removing the clear blue cable.
-
-
-
Close the display and turn the ZG5 over so that the battery compartment faces away from you.
-
-
-
Remove three 5.8 mm Phillips #0 screws from the bottom of the case
-
Remove three 3.9 mm Phillips #1 screws from the battery compartment.
-
Remove two 5.8 mm Phillips #0 screws from underneath the feet near the hinges.
-
-
-
Turn the netbook back over and open the display with the keyboard cavity facing you.
-
-
-
Flip up the retaining flap on the trackpad ribbon cable ZIF connector.
-
Using the blue tab, pull the trackpad ribbon cable from its socket on the motherboard.
-
-
-
Remove the five black 4.7 mm Phillips #0 screws from the metal casing.
-
Remove the single silver 4.3 mm Phillips #00 screw from the right side of the metal casing.
-
-
-
Starting at the red rings along the hinge, insert a spudger or plastic opening tool into the seam between the two halves of the case.
-
Slide the spudger toward the front of the device, releasing the small clips that hold down the top case.
-
Gently lift off the top case.
-
-
-
Disconnect the two antenna cables from the right side of the wireless card.
-
-
-
Disconnect the display cable from the top left of the motherboard.
-
-
-
Remove three 3.9 mm Phillips #1 screws from the small I/O board.
-
Remove a single 3.9 mm Phillips #0 screw from the front of the motherboard.
-
-
-
Remove the two 4.7 mm Phillips #1 screws that connect the display to the motherboard.
-
To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order.
Cancel: I did not complete this guide.
114 other people completed this guide.
Team
Cal Poly, Team 7-49, Amido Fall 2010 Member of Cal Poly, Team 7-49, Amido Fall 2010
CPSU-AMIDO-F10S7G49
5 Members
34 Guides authored
14 Guide Comments
Excellent guide. This "student" should be promoted to "instructor" right away. Many thanks.
This guide helped a lot with refurbishing my old ZG5. It now has a case that is not cracked, 1.5 GB memory, and a 240GB SSD. I get to put off Windows 10 for a while longer.
Thanks a lot! i already upgrade memory from 1 to 1.5 on my acer. But i have a question, does the aoa 150 works faster with a ssd disk? i want to try with one of 240 gb. Anyone try it?
Not the easiest upgrade I've ever done (perhaps the most difficult, actually), but I got it done. Removing the keyboard was the trickiest step for me. Be patient. If you can work one of the corner releases, you can put a flat-blade screwdriver under the corner of the keyboard and work on the other releases (starting at the far corner, then the centre).
The other tricky problem I had was getting the little ribbon cable for the trackpad properly reconnected after completing the project. (I thought the keyboard cable would be the tricky part, but it turns out to be pretty easy.) Be patient and you'll be fine. You may want to test (with a mouse handy) before you reinsert the keyboard.
Thanks very much for this howto!
I had one of these little beasts that my son gave away about 6 years ago. The person he gave it to returned it to him a month later because it would not turn on. It was a case of the boot sector problem that plagues the ZG5. I performed the repair described on the Acer web site and it has been running fine ever since. After installing Linux Mint (dual boot), it was finally given away again last summer. Now it seems it is coming back to me. This might be the time to upgrade it with an SSD. Thanks for this tutorial. I will probably be making use of it over the next few weeks.
Chuck Pilger - 02/23/2017
