[ale] Zapmedia Zapstation

[Brian Pitts]

Michael Hirsch wrote:
> Hi y'all.  Thanks, Aaron, for cluing me in to this thread.
> 
> Jim is right about the three stages.  But what he has forgotten or
> maybe didn't know is that if you have an original zapstation, there
> are a reasonable number of security measure in it.  For starters, the
> BIOS won't boot anything but one of the original locking hard drives.
> If the drive is unlocked it will attempt to lock it and reboot.  If
> you don't have that drive it isn't going to boot.  If you do, then it
> should boot.

Oh, that's too bad. What does it mean for a hard drive to be "locked" in 
this context?

The drive that came in it is a 30GB Quantum. When I hooked it up to 
another system I got a large number of errors (which I'm ashamed to say 
I didn't write down) during boot.

> It will not boot off a CD.  The BIOS has that turned off.

Again, too bad. No way to change BIOS settings during boot?

> If you can find an updated BIOS online and can burn it onto a BIOS
> chip, then you should be able to treat the ZS like any other computer.

Google turned up a BIOS for the P6STP-FN at 
http://www.bios-drivers.com/drivers/138/138829.htm . I don't have an 
EPROM burner, but I could try hotflashing. 
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2004/03/11/bios_hotflash.html

> You might like to join the zapstation yahoo group.  It is pretty
> quiet, but there are a fair number of the original developers on it,
> as well as some guys who have tried to turn it into a media PC.

Thanks! I hadn't found that group.

-Brian