Chilling Copier Security Nightmare

Contact Konica and see if they can address your concerns, you can also remove the HD yourself and try to read it with a USB to IDE/SATA adapter like the following: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812119244 These machines often run XP (our copiers do, XP CE) and you can read the file structure very easily. We do have to remove them and wipe the free space the folder that contains the documents (not all get saved in our case, but enough do). We have to remove the HD on several models and others have a wipe feature that works very well (we've checked).  
i noticed that Konica has most user-manuals online, I don't know what copier you have, but I did find a manual for backing up a HDD
http://kmbs.konicaminolta.us/content/support/supportmanuals.html (select office systems, then your bizhub device) Should the user-manual not provide answers, contact them directly.
-rich

Some of the bizhub;s have a Job Erase that might be what your looking for:
http://kmbs.konicaminolta.us/main/content/products/attachments/productdocs/bizhub_C650_C550_C451_brochure_V2.pdf
Job erase without a trace. After every job, the bizhub Job Erase
feature can automatically overwrite your HDD up to three times –
deleting any trace of job data in compliance with U.S. military standards
for the Army (DoD 5220.22-M), Navy (NAVSO P-5239-26) and
Air Force (AFSSI5020).
Secure disposal of your HDD. Before moving, re-using or disposing
of your hard disk drive, an HDD Sanitizing feature can overwrite
and sanitize its data in 8 different modes to comply with 11 U.S.
military and international security standards – including seven-times
overwrite protection (AFSSI5020).


Again check your manuals...
-rich

There is also an option to encrypt the hard drive. http://www.biz.konicaminolta.com/solution_special/solutions/modelcase/modelcase009.html?co=software_hdd

We have the drives removed at the end of the lease period & they get destroyed the same way decommissioned PC drives are trashed.  It costs us around $120 at the end of the lease & the KM engineer then puts in a new drive before they send it for resale.  The news feed is spot on - people don't have any idea of the risk for confidential data.  With Minolta (and others) your machines can be configured for external access for remote servicing so check for this too as a potential security risk.

Can you provide the models of the machines?
I Will check for each model

We have a BizHub C550.

Jrtech - thanks for the succinct how to.