Phaser Hard Drive Files (specifically 7700 series)

[mixmansc]

So though my own testing with a 7700 we have I determined that there is absolutley nothing special about the hard drives in these. They are formatted with a Fat32 file system. Our 7700 has about 815MB of files on it. We have the drive go out on one. I simply pulled the drive from the other and cloned it to an old 30GB laptop drive we had laying around. Plugged it in and presto. Works great. Even extended the partition out to the full 30GB and the 7700 likes it just fine. Also copied it to a desktops drive to look at the files. Found the driver files - replaced those with the most current drivers. You can even fool around with some of the web pages if you want - I replaced the Centreware logo with our own company logo and added some custom pages to the help file pages.

Anyways - when I first ran across this when the older 7700 drive died I came to realize you cannot get the files for a drive anywhere. You have no choice but to pay a 9000% markup for an outdated IDE laptop drive with less than a gig of files on it if the drive in your printer happens to die. Knowing this I now of course have a backup of our 7700 drives files.

That being said we recently picked up a couple of used government surplus 7750 phasers. Sadly for data security they pulled and destroyed the hard drives from both prior to letting them leave the building. Is there any remote chance anyone on here happens to have a backup of the files from a 7750 hard drive? Or of you have or have access to a 7750 might be willing to make a backup of the files? I'd be willing to pay for this and to be honest I'd rather pay you than pay $150 (refurb) or even more for a new drive. The actual hard drives are only worth twenty to thirty bucks. I think Xerox users should band together to make the files from their drives available for others so we are not held hostage to gouging for an off the shelf part. I'd happily offer up a copy of the hard drive files for a 7700 for anyone that needs it.

Anyways - if anyone with a 7750 might be willing to help please do let me know. I already know these 2 7750 machines I got were under service contracts and in excellent working order up until they were replaced. These are great workhorse machines and need to be put back to good use.

 

[jimbopalmer]

Without an agreement with Xerox to ignore the massive copyright infringement, I do not see this gaining any traction. The liability to my company is greater than the cost of a new printer.

I tried to remain child-like, all I acheived was childish.

 

[mixmansc]

Yeah I see the problem there.... just irritating that they want so much for what is essentially the firmware for these. The majority of whats is on the drives is really simplistic stuff like outdated drivers, all of the manuals in 30 different languages, test pages, instructional videos, all of the files for the printers web pages, of course the vXWorks operating system files which Xerox licenses from Wind River, and finally the actual printers files that it needs to fully boot up beyond service mode.

In the end I bit the bullet and bought a "refurbished" drive. Another joke.... what exactly does one do in order to refurbish a hard drive other than test to make sure it works? Sort of like places selling refurbished ram.... just call it used ok.

Got the drive in and up and running perfect with both 7750 machines. Turns out one was about 200k pages, the other 450k. One had pretty much had all consumables replaced in the last year with little to no use since. Toner all 85% plus, as well as the drums and all. The other needs toner and 1 drum and will be ready to roll. I am going to experiment on the toner side - I will updated once I know for certain by my own confirmation. The 7750 changed the toner fomulation to the EA HG (emulsion aggregate - high grade). Several other machines based on the same hardware form factor run the same toner with the only difference being in the end of the tube that goes inside the machine - some of the notches are different.

You do have to be sure on this though - it must be a mchine that specifically is designed for EA HG, regular EA has a much higher melting point, and there is also EA that requires oil (iGen), EA Eco, and of course standard toners. I've spoken to one guy who merely clipped one of the plastic tabs on the end of the cartridge from another machine and it works just fine. Again though - you must use tone intended for the print engine in your machine. It seems that the average price for Genuine Xerox toner for a 7750 or 7760 is far higher than the exact same toner for say a WorkCentre 2128 even though they are the same toner and (internally) the same print engine.

I do realize the error of my original post in that yes - software/firmware is copyrighted. I cannot therefore in good concience promote sharing of such. These are expensive and excellent machines though and as they get on in their years I do feel like if owners find some tip that will potentially save them a bundle then we should share that. I will say this much - if you have a Xerox that uses an internal hard drive - I would not hesitate to suggest (if it is in your technical ability to do so) that you might consider making a backup of the hard drive for your use only in case of drive failure.

On the toner side of things - these machines that are desinged for the EA toners do not use fuser oil. Due to copyrights thrid party toner cannot be formulated the exact same and I'd suggest NOT mixing third party toner with Xerox toner. You will probably have issues with glossiness variation and potentially other problems that might even cause damage to your machine. The EA toners have a much lower melting point. If you do want to do with third party toner be sure to get it from a reputable company that guarantees it's formulation is safe for your machine and switch ALL 4 colors over at once. I personally like the Xerox toner - it was designed for the machine and works great - it's just expensive so I'm exploring lower cost options for the real deal. I have 006R01177 magenta on the way to test - that one is intended for several models of the CopyCenter and WorkCenter machines that also specify EA HG toner and are essentially the same printers internally as far as the actual print engines go. Just different external options and interfaces.