The printer's black ink cartridge won't print without the Tri-color print cartridge

No. If you set it to tri color you WILL use the color ink cartridge to make black. Set the driver to print B&W

Tri color cartridge contains Cyan,Magenta & Yellow color inks, mono cartridge contain black ink, combination/mixing with these inks desired color out put will prints on paper.. If any one or more inks are missing/dried, result mis matched print outs on paper.
In your case I feel it's Magenta ink is not firing..,nozzles may clogged, try to clean the nozzles with solvents & try it...If no result ,. replace the color cartridge..

You can only use the black ink cartridge without the color ink. But no need to replace them in your printer.
When you print just choose black and white for the printed text must be black not colored. But if you still received such notification...just try to replace the color ink cartridge to continue printing
Note: As per my experience. printer with exclusive black ink alone will damage the printer easily due to unbalance printing of ink

This model printer has only two slots for ink cartridges. One is for a black ink cartrigde and the other is for a tri-color cartridge which contains cyan, magenta and yellow inks.
This tri-color cartridge has run out of yellow ink, you need to replace this tri-color cartridge.

You would require to change the tri color ink because its and ink jet so you would require both the cartridges in to make it work properly

Go to the printer settings - Preferences- color tab - and select Grayscale in the color selection.

Once this is done, try print a color text and see if it comes in a gray scale. This will work.

To give you a tip on this.... understand that this printer has a black ink cartridge and a tri-color cartridge. When we select grayscale, only black cartridge would be used.

Good Luck.

The printer has two ink-cartridges: black and tri-color.
The black cartridge has ink left.
The tri-color cartridge has run out of 2 of the 3 colours of ink.
Buy a replacement tri-color cartridge,
and responsibly recycle the "empty" cartridge.

I have an HP Photsmart C4100 printer. I purchased remanufactured ink cartridges (both black and tri-colored) from Vivasmart. The black one works fine, but when I installed the tri-color, I got an error message that says "Print cartridge problem" The following print cartridge has a problem:
Tri-color. And I can't print. The screen on my printer says "Remove and check color cartridge." I have done this several times and it still won't print. I have turned off the power, removed the cartridges, and unplugged the unit, but it still didn't help. Any suggestions?

Probably bad, there's actually no way to check ink levels.

Black ink is an essential part of the printing process. The black color is only made by the black cartridge, the color cartridge does make "black".
One or more optional photo cartridges may be available, depending on your printer model.

• Use the photo cartridge with a tri-color cartridge for best-quality color photos and graphics, and sepia or antique photos.
• Choose a gray photo cartridge to print black and white photos with truer grays and richer blacks.

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