Acer Aspire ZG5: What's behind that lid on the bottom?

[acernoob]

Hi, I got myself a used acer aspire ZG5. It's the 8G SSD version, which is not exactly what I wanted, but I'm happy with it for now. He didn't know the exact specifications because his GF threw the box away, so.. I'm stuck with it. However.. I found a rectangular lid on the bottom, much like on my old laptop and before I open it and void what warranty is left, I'd like to fiind out if it's meant for adding a regular 1.8" hard drive? I really want to avoid taking the whole thing apart just to replace the hard drive. Any suggestions?

[ThisIsNot]

Well, I doubt you are going to find anyone here with that specific model who actively participates in the forums. Most square/rectangular hatches under netbooks are for adding RAM. In fact, you have to pretty much take most netbooks apart to upgrade their internal hard drives but they leave one RAM bay on the bottom for easy access.

You can always pop it open and see for yourself as most access bays are held shut with four small screws. Opening that small bay will NOT void your warranty though. Acer put that user accessible bay there for a reason and it wasn't to tempt you into voiding your warranty. Netbooks with user upgradable RAM have it laid out in their warranties that opening that single bay and adding additional RAM won't void anything.

So go ahead and take the few screws off and open it up. You will likely find a used RAM slot in there and nothing else. Most netbooks have their internal hard drives located under the keyboard requiring that you disassemble it.

[acernoob]

I did open it and now I'm a bit puzzled. There is nothing in there. There's a kind of tray shielding the electronics beneath. No obvious connection points, except a small pcb with a row of solder points sticking out on the end by the lid screws. But it looks more like a bay for some connector strip somewhere beneath. I have absolutely no clue what I'm dealing with here. Also the lip between where the lid screws would go has a piece of heavy duty tape with a velcro-like end stuck on the lip, perhaps holding something in place? Does this sound like something familiar to you? I'll have to take a picture of it once I get my camera charged up.

[ThisIsNot]

That just sounds strange. Definitely take a picture and upload it.