Introduction: Replace the Zip Drive in a Roland VS-840

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In this instructable, I will walk you through replacing the Zip drive in a Roland VS-840 Digital Studio Workstation.

Step 1: Materials

For this instructable, you need the following:

A Roland VS-840 Digital Studio Workstation, presumably with a malfunctioning Zip drive.

A new IDE Zip drive,. Be sure that you have the right capacity drive to replace the bad one. The stock VS-840 came with a 100Mb drive with a black bezel. The was also an upgrade kit offered at one time, so you may have a 250Mb drive instead.

A screwdriver.

Step 2: Remove the Bottom Plate

Flip the unit over, then remove the screws indicated and lift off the bottom plate.

Step 3: Remove and Replace the Zip Drive

The Zip drive is located on the lower left-hand side of the unit, presuming that the bottom of the unit is facing you.

1. Remove the data cable and power cable from the Zip drive. These are standard IDE and Molex connectors like those seen in many computers.

2. Remove the four screws holding the Zip drive in place.

3. Slide the Zip drive to the left and remove it from the case.

4. IMPORTANT: Check to make sure that the jumper on the drive is set to the Master position. If you have the jumper in another position, you will see an error during initialization.

5. Insert the new Zip drive

6. Install the four screws to hold the Zip drive in

7. Install the data and power cables

8. Power it back up and make sure everything is working. If you get any errors, check to make sure both cables are connected properly and the jumper is in the right position. WARNING: Don't touch any of the exposed innards while you have things powered up without the bottom plate on. This will likely have a variety of bad results.

9. Power back down and unplug. Put the bottom plate back in place and reinstall the rest of the screws.

Done!