Erasing the Hard Drive

[shlafy]

I am getting rid of my HP Color LaserJet 4650 and wanted to know how to erase the memory on the hard drive.  We are a financial firm and need to document that we've purged all potentially secure information before releasing any hardware.  Any suggestions, recommendations or advise would be greatly appreciated,.

Thanks,

Linda

[davidzuts]

First you need to see if you actually have a hard disk.  On this printer the hard disk was mounted on a card and placed in an EIO slot in the formatter.  If you have one it will be mounted into one of the 3 slots where you make the connection with a cable from the printer to the computer or network.  All I would do if I had one would be to loosen the 2 thumb screws that secure the eio hard disk to the pritner, slide the disk out, get myself a strong magnet and run it over the hard disk which will give it a very good security erase.  To be honest I doubt you have the hard disk unless the printer was the HD model.  The other method if you have a hard disk is to initialize the drive.

A hard disk initialization will erase and reformat the printer's hard disk. Perform hard disk initialization
only if an error code appears on the control panel indicating an EIO disk error. Always try initializing
the hard disk before replacing it.
To initialize the hard disk
1 Turn the printer on.
2 As the printer performs its power-on sequence, press and hold the PAUSE/RESUME (HP Color
LaserJet 4600 models) or MENU (HP Color LaserJet 4610n and 4650 models) button until all
three lights on the control panel are lit.
3 Press the left arrow. The message INITIALIZE DISK appears on the control-panel display.
4 Press the check mark button.  The printer initializes the hard disk and continues its power-on sequence.