I broke the screen on my Archos 101 and decided to try and repair it. I found that you can buy a screen for it but no digitiser (the bit that detects your fingers moving on the screen). It turned out to be impossible to remove the existing digitiser and re-use it. So I bought a broken Archos from e-bay with the idea of fitting the screen from that to my old Archos.

I found a few links that helped a little with taking the Archos apart -

http://forum.archosfans.com/viewtopic.php?t=39945&f=74
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.archoslounge.net/forum/showthread.php%3Ft%3D14311%26p%3D186992%23post186992&prev=_t
http://www.jonespcrepair.com/site4/2011/01/04/inside-the-archos-101/
http://www.arctablet.com/blog/archos-tablet/inside-archos-101-internet-tablet/

I've taken a few extra photos during the process.

Instructions on how to remove the back.
Remove all six screws (not just four as mentioned by Jones).  They are easy to see on the back of the Archos - they are not covered but they are quite small.

I used a torx bit that was slightly too large. Ideally you'll have a "CR-VT5.5" (according to Jones)

Now prize the back off. It's very similar to most mobile phones - there are plastic clips holding it in place that just need a little force to pop them open. I used finger nails and a pen top to start it off -

Once you've got the first few, the rest should go easily.

The back won't quite come away as there's a black wire holding it at one end -

 and at the other side there's a yellow cable stuck down with tape. Here you can see me helping the tape off with a pen -

 You can slide your hand in and pull the tape off. Then you can open the lid. In my case, the yellow cable also pulled itself out of the small socket it was in but that's no big deal.

You'll then have it in two halves -

Be careful with the strip of plastic over the external connections. I held it in place when moving things around.

Detaching the screen
Assuming you pulled out the larger ribbon cable, there is just the smaller cable and a black wire. The black wire is held on with solder so you could get a soldering iron and melt it slightly but my friend at work had a special technique that involved moving it from side to side several times and then it just came away!

The smaller ribbon cable should just pull out with minimal force. Here it is half way -

I started to look at removing the screen from the case by removing the four screws but it was still firmly in place.  Then I realised I can just replace the screen and that half of the case from the broken Archos that I got from ebay.

Once the ebay Archos arrived, it was simple to swap the screen over and put everything back together.  I needed to solder the black wire back on - I've not used a soldering iron in years but it's not hard!

Getting a working 16GB Archos 101 off ebay would have been about £110.  The broken one turned out expensive at around £45 including P&P but I had little choice.  I didn't want to sell my old Archos for parts as it had my account information on there.  I now have a spare charger and spare batteries - could come in handy one day.  My old Archos 5 had to go once the batteries gave out so perhaps I'll hold into the 101 for a while though I think I'd rather have a smaller tablet given the choice.