AF3260 Hard drive failure

[Voltage]

Hi Guys

If have a AF3260C thats giving me SC672. I have updated the firmware and this sorted the machine out, but only for three hours. You switch the machine on and it will display "please Wait" for about 5-8 minutes and then give you the code SC672. You can not enter the service mode. I disconnected all the hard drives. The machine is now working but only copying. Scanning and printing is disabled. I see the manual says you have to replace all 4 x 80Gb hard drive as a unit. Is this true? Here in South Africa everything is expensive. Do not want to waste money.

Can one maybe just take each drive, put them in a drive walker and format them on a PC. If so FAT or NTFS?

[Mess]

All 4 drives MUST be replaced as a set

If you want to try formating, do all 4

[Voltage]

What file system? FAT or NTFS

[FRIDGEMAGNET]

I do them NTFS but not sure it matters. Perform format in SP mode after.

[Cipher]

Four HDDs? talk about overkill.

The odds are one of them will fail during the machines life span and I bet Ricoh charge a small fortune to order a replacement set.

Crazy.

[Voltage]

Four HDDs? talk about overkill.

The odds are one of them will fail during the machines life span and I bet Ricoh charge a small fortune to order a replacement set.

Crazy.

Its normal 80Gb IDE hard drives. Their about R380 for one. So R1120 and we have 3 backup drives

R/$ - R8.80 = $1

To give you an idea: Bread R9
2L Coke R15
6 pack local beer R30
Petrol R10 a liter
Cost price on a MPC3500 R80 000

Gonna replace all 4 today. Will let you guys know how it when.

Thanks for the help.