We have several models of Ricoh, Canon and IKON Copier/MFDs in our company that need to be returned to a leasing company soon. Our IT Security Manager has mandated that the hard drives be wiped. We have an equipment maintenance/service contract on each machine for which we already pay thousands per year per device. This maintenance service contract which is described as ''Gold Support Level'' evidently does not cover the permanent removal of our data from the hard drives in these devices prior to their return from leasing. As we look ahead to start replacing these aging devices over the next several months, the service providers intend to either mount a massive project to send their technicians to remove destroy and replace the currently installed hard drives, billing my company for the cost of the currently installed drive PLUS a new drive, PLUS absorbitant installation fees for the new drive. The bills per machine thus far have been frightening at mulitple thoursands of dollars apiece! OR they will be charging us over a thousand dollars per machine to send a technician to install a software tool and do the data erasure task in the supposedly relatively few cases where it is possible to use software to wipe the drive. This has been very irritating and frustrating to me, coming from the PC world where relatively inexpensive tools are available for site licensing to wipe hard drives, if you are willing to apply your internal resources to the job. This copier thing feels a bit like our company's proprietary data is being held for a huge ransom. We would be more than happy and willing to put our internal IT people onto the task of erasing data from these drives if we could find a reasonably priced solution that will work on MFD hard drives, or even some type of reasonable manual approach to doing so. Has anyone out there encountered and resolved this situation in a cost effective manner? The makes/models are:
Ricoh Aficio 20xx and 30xx Series, Ricoh Aficio 3500, 4500, 6500 and 9000, Canon 105
Canon 3570, Canon 9070, ,Canon 5075, Canon 7105, IKON CPP 500, IKON 8050
I can only advise on the Ricoh machines. If you remove the 2-4 screws holding the printer interface in the machine, the entire assembly pulls out and the HDD's are easily removed from the board.
The 20xx is a basic laptop (IDE) drive the 30xx is a standard PC (IDE) drive. As for the newer 3500,4500, etc. They may be a newer SATA or the even the same (i have minimal experience on these ones), but your IT dept can identify them. You can replace these for the cost of a new drive (maybe $60-$80) - The currently installed drives are maybe 20Gb-40Gb . I believe you can only buy maybe an 80Gb these days, but that's fine. Install them and do what you like with the old ones. There should be no formatting required and all features should work as before with the exception (obviously) of anything stored in the document server /address book, etc. Scanning destinations will probably be deleted as well, however it will have no affect on printing features.
Of course 'Ricoh' or "Ikon" (owned by Ricoh) wants to replace it with their "proprietary" HDD at hugely inflated prices -but they will just be "hitachi", or "toshiba" dirves anyway.
I would not be surprised at all if the Canon machines were just as easy - most are.
I don't think you'll want to mention this to your service company, or they will likely come back at you for 'tampering' or something foolish.
This is a suggestion only , and I myself won't accept any liability for damage caused or costs incurred, should you decide to try it.
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