This page was put together by Cristos Kalangis.  (Thanks Cris)
Please help us add to "Why do I need to format my drive?"

    On iR2200/2800/3300, iR8500, iR105, iR5000i/6000i class machines, formatting the hard drive is an important tool that can be used to deal with a variety of service issues.  There are four different partition choices on these imageRunner machines, /BOOTDEV, /PDLDEV, /FSTDEV, and /DOSDEV.  It is important to note that there are different methods used to access the different partitions.  This process will be explained here.

TO FORMAT THE HARD DRIVE FROM YOUR LAPTOP COMPUTER

TO ACCESS /BOOTDEV:

1.    Turn on lap top computer and start Service Support Tool.
2.    Follow Service Support Tool to the point where it requires you to power up the copier and enter download mode.
3.    Put the iR into "Power ON Download Mode".  (See service manual or a trained technician)
4.    Continue to follow Service Support Tool and it will prompt you to format /BOOTDEV.  This will allow you to remove the System Software from the hard drive, not just over write it.
 

TO ACCESS /PDLDEV, /FSTDEV, /DOSDEV:

1.    Turn on lap top computer and start Service Support Tool.
2.    Follow Service Support Tool to the point where it requires you to power up the copier and enter download mode.
3.    AT THIS POINT ACCESS DOWNLOAD MODE THROUGH MACHINE SERVICE MODE COPIER>FUNCTION>SYSTEM>DOWNLOAD>OK. WHENSTANDBYIS INDICATED YOU WILL BE IN DOWNLOAD MODE.
4.    Continue to follow Service Support Tool to the FORMAT utility and it will present you the choice of either /PDLDEV, /FSTDEV, or /DOSDEV, for formatting.
 

FORMATING OPTIONS FROM THE MACHINE CONTROL PANNEL

    It is also possible to format parts of the drive from the machine control pannel.  This will explain the procedure used to do this.  Please note that it is not possible to format the entire drive or the firmware area from this utility.

This section deals with the imageRunner machines, iR2200/2800/3300,iR8500,iR105, iR5000i/6000i
      Enter the machines service mode and go toCOPIER>FUNCTION>SYSTEM>CHK-TYPE, Under this choice you must choose one of five selections pertaining to the different partition checking options presented (0-4).  This function serves as a scan disk utility but the selection made here is the one used when the HD-CLEAR function is selected.  For this purpose 0-The whole drive, 1-image storage area, 2-general file storage area, 3-PDL-related file storage area, 4-firmware storage area, are to be accessed by making the appropriate choice. Note, as mentioned above it is not possible to select "0" or "4" thereby formating the firmware from this selection.

NOTE: For imageRunner550/600 and imageRunner5000/6000 the procedure is different.  After entering Service Mode enter COPIER>FUNCTION>HRD-DISK, here you will find SCANDISK and FORMAT.  Scandisk will allow you to check the entire drive for errors and Format will allow you to clear only the Image Information Area (/FSTDEV) partition of the hard drive.
 

    To aid in the servicing of hardrive related problems, we include here a brief outline as to what each partition is involved with.
 

/BOOTDEV - firmware storage area (choice 4)
    The size of this partition is dependant on the size of the hard drive.  If the HD is 5.1GB in size then the partition will be 200MB.  Should there be a 6.4GB HD in place then 500MB is allotted for this partition.  Read-Only files such as the System Program and RUI are stored here.  Also files which are not updated frequently such as Address Book are stored.  In the case of PS/PCL models such as the iR5000/6000 where Fonts are stored on the machine itself, this information is also stored here.

/PDLDEV - PDL-related file storage area (choice 3)
    This partitions size is also dependant on the size of the HD in the machine.  If the HD is 5.1GB then 200MB is reserved, if the drive is 6.4GB then 1.4GB is reserved.  Fonts added by the user such as PostScript fonts are stored here.

/FSTDEV - image storage area (choice 1)
    This partition is fixed at 4GB and is used to store compressed image data.

/DOSDEV - general file storage area (choice 2)
    In a 5.1GB HD 400MB are reserved and in a 6.1GB HD 500MB are held.  This space is used to store temporary files, log data, and the management files of the compressed image data held in the/FSTDEVpartition.