Apparent flaw in Griffiths EM on solving Laplace's equation

I'm going through Griffiths EM and I've come across an example on how to solve Laplace's equaton through separation of variables, trying to convert a partial differential equation into an ODE, which is much simpler to solve. Nonetheless, in one of the steps in his reasoning, there might be a division by zero which I'd like to have checked. Here is the textbook's example: Say you have 2 infinite planes connected to earth, as well as to each other by an infinite strip with some potential $V_0(y)$ , as shown in the picture. The boundary conditions are as follows: $V=0$ when $y=0$ $V=0$ when $y=a$ $V=V_0(y)$ when $x=0$ $V\longrightarrow 0$ when $x\longrightarrow \infty$ We are asked to find the potential in the region inbetween the infinite planes. In order to achieve this, we first assume the potential function is of the form $V(x,y)=f(x)\cdot g(y)$ as to be able to separate variables later. Now we can substitute this expression in Laplace's equation and write: $g(y)\cdot \frac{d^2 f}{d x^2} + f(x)\cdot \frac{d^2 g}{d y^2}=0$ Now, the textbook claims we can easily separate variables by dividing by $V$ , in which case we'd obtain: $\frac{1}{f(x)}\cdot \frac{d^2 f}{dx^2} + \frac{1}{g(y)}\cdot \frac{d^2 f}{dx^2}=0$ Nonetheless, I don't understand why we can divide by $V$ if there are regions in space in which $V=0$ as stated in the boundary conditions. If our solution is to account for the potential in the region inbetween the infinite planes, then how come we are allowed to divide by $V$ ? My best guess is the regions in which $V=0$ are not contained in the region inbetween the planes but rather delimit it, so we don't need them to be included in our solution as long as the boundary conditions are consistent with what we obtain near said limits.