IM C300 SP Mode

[slimslob]

Re: IM C300 SP Mode

I work for a logistics company and we are CUSTOMERS of Ricoh. Why would Ricoh train me? I have a background in printing as a technician and administrator and thats why im in charge of the printer fleet. Your life must really suck to treat people this way.

Well here is the US, Ricoh-USA does allow certified self service customers to send their service employees to Ricoh training. It makes the customer more apt to make their next purchase from Ricoh. At the very least Ricoh-(where ever you are) should have provided the company you work for with a contact person who should be able to answer the question you have.

Oh, by the way, you are coming very close to being Red Carded and reported for being disrespectful to a senior member.

[tonerhead]

Re: IM C300 SP Mode

While I agree that we should not be posting service codes to public. Here might be a work around for you that I have used in the past. With an sc860, most likely the toshiba hdd in the unit is toast and needs to be replaced anyway. However, the service hdd format doesn't tell the whole story. I've pulled hdd's and tested them and looked at the s.m.a.r.t. data on them. If they pass, do a low level format and shove them back into the machine. My theory is the hdd isn't really bad a lot of times, just really fragmented. My experience tells me that if the hdd has no s.m.a.r.t. errors and passes the read/write verification test, there is nothing wrong with it and you can just reuse it without worry. When you replace the hdd, the first thing that pops up on the screen at powerup is "the hdd has been replaced, reformat?" Answer yes. Hdd is very easily replaced on these, just buy an off the shelf .5 gig 2.5 inch.

[slimslob]

Re: IM C300 SP Mode

While I agree that we should not be posting service codes to public. Here might be a work around for you that I have used in the past. With an sc860, most likely the toshiba hdd in the unit is toast and needs to be replaced anyway. However, the service hdd format doesn't tell the whole story. I've pulled hdd's and tested them and looked at the s.m.a.r.t. data on them. If they pass, do a low level format and shove them back into the machine. My theory is the hdd isn't really bad a lot of times, just really fragmented. My experience tells me that if the hdd has no s.m.a.r.t. errors and passes the read/write verification test, there is nothing wrong with it and you can just reuse it without worry. When you replace the hdd, the first thing that pops up on the screen at powerup is "the hdd has been replaced, reformat?" Answer yes. Hdd is very easily replaced on these, just buy an off the shelf .5 gig 2.5 inch.

Unless Ricoh has drastically changed things since I retired in 2017, all the format in SP mode does is write a blank directory and allocation table to the drive. Also if there have been more than a certain number of entries to the Ricoh redirection table due to read/write errors since it was first installed, it will not be reformatted either automatic or in SP. Low level format will only reject the drive if the SMART errors are excessive. I have found that a HDD utility such as SpinRite or MiniTools on a WIndows PC does a far better than Windows format. A UNIX based OS is also good for low level formatting.

[tonerhead]

Re: IM C300 SP Mode

Slimslob is right, the Ricoh sp hdd format really does nothing too exciting. I use a couple of freeware programs for my usage. HDDScan has a nice freeware that reads smart data, then you can actually verify the hdd has no bad sectors. Then I use hddllf for the low level format. If I were dealing with this problem, I wouldn't even bother with the Ricoh hdd format. Just pull the drive and put in a new or "verified" good replacement.