It's getting a little too fighty in here — let's stick to the topic. There's nothing saved on a Raspberry Pi Zero board that could cause the hardware problem the OP described. That remains to be unproved. There is 32k of boot rom, which I plan on comparing a working vs a non working assuming I get ...

Ok sparky if you say so. BTW dont be so quick to correct someone (especially when they didnt exactly say what you are correcting them on). EEPROMs are eraseable programmable ROMs. ho hum its so tedious playing with children on the internet that have no other desire than to prove how smart they are....