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Ive got an M281fdw laser printer, which i have used for about a year, which I wish to sell.

Are there any security issues to consider when selling a printer that has been used.

My considerations so far have been :

  • Would any previously printed / scanned documents be viewable / recallable by the purchaser
  • Would any wifi passwords stored on the computer be accessible to the purchaser
sam
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3 Answers3

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Some older printers actually have hard drive storage buried inside them to queue up print jobs and act as supplementary memory. More modern printers have flash storage that serves the same purpose and has the same issue.

It appears your printer, the HP MFP M281fdw has 256 MB of Flash storage in it. You'd need to either remove the Flash storage before selling it, or figure out how to clear it. Check your manual.

Memory, standard 256 MB DDR, 256 MB Flash

https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-color-laserjet-pro-mfp-m281fdw

Steve Sether
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All HP LaserJets and LaserJet MFPs have pretty similar structure for the data stored in memory devices:

  • Non-volatile memory: 16KB EEPROM chips for settings and counters and 64MB flash memory for OS and software.
  • Volatile memory: 256MB – 512MB DDR memory for print and copying data during job processing.

First I'd reset to factory defaults to lose the custom settings you have made. Then, having it unplugged for several minutes should erase the DDR memory.

Things would be worse with models with hard drives.

Esa Jokinen
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The short answer is: yes. It is possible that memory storage might have all those things.

As far as I know, there is no clear way to erase storage.

schroeder
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