How to Reset an HP Printer After Refilling With Ink

An HP printer is one of the most profitable investments you can make for your home or office. They are renowned for their excellent print quality, which HP has developed for more than 50 years. The company continues to innovate with features like high resolution printing, faster print speeds and faster wireless connections.

However, HP printers are far from perfect. Although you can refill the cartridges with ink to save costs, the printer may not recognize them when they are reinstalled. As a result, you might end up delaying important print jobs even though you have everything your printer needs.

Luckily, resetting your printer after a recharge will almost always get you back on track. But how can you do it?

This article will show you how to reset HP printers after refilling ink.

How to reset an HP printer after an ink refill

Refilling HP cartridges is an unavoidable chore if you own one of their printers. While some cartridges will work without issue after using a refill kit, some models require a hard reset. This is because the printer may not detect the newly filled cartridge. Sometimes you may even encounter a "third-party cartridge detected" error message even though the refilled cartridge is a genuine HP product. It can be quite frustrating.

Whenever this happens, resetting your printer should be first on your list of troubleshooting options. And the good thing about that is that it can also work if you replaced the HP cartridges with another compatible option from another vendor.

You can reset your HP printer in two ways. Let's see how each method works.

Tape method

This method works by covering the cartridge contacts used to gauge the ink level. The goal is to restore ink level monitoring. Here's how:

1. First, make sure you can see the contacts on your cartridge by turning it over. After that, turn the cartridge over so that the contacts are on the underside.
   
2. Cover the contacts in the upper left corner of your cartridge with a piece of tape.
   
3. At this point, reinsert the cartridge into the HP printer and immediately print an alignment page. By default, the printer may display a message suggesting that the cartridge has problems. You can ignore it as it will not affect the reset process.
4. When the alignment is complete, remove the cartridge again but leave the tape in place.
5. Next, cover the contacts in the upper right corner of your cartridge with tape.
6. Reinsert the cartridge and print an alignment page. As before, ignore any error messages displayed by your printer during the process.
7. After that, remove the ink cartridge.
8. Without removing the ribbon that is already on the upper side of your cartridge, glue the lower left corner.
9. Reinsert the cartridge into the HP printer and print an alignment page again.
10. After alignment, remove the cartridge, then remove any pieces of tape from it.
11. Reinsert the cartridge. Your printer should now indicate that the cartridge is full.

Exchange method

This method uses multiple empty cartridges to clear your printer's memory. Here's how:

1. Place the refilled ink cartridge in the printer.
2. Proceed to print an alignment page. If the printer displays an error message, ignore it as it will not affect the reset process. At this point, the ink level will still be at the pre-fill level.
3. Safely remove the ink cartridge from your printer.
4. Take one of your old compatible cartridges and proceed to print an alignment page. The printer will detect that there is a new cartridge.
5. Remove the second cartridge.
6. Insert yet another cartridge from your old stock, then print an alignment page. The printer will clear the memory of the second cartridge and now recognize the third cartridge.
7. Insert a fourth cartridge from your old stock and print an alignment page. The printer will clear the memory of the third cartridge and now recognize the fourth cartridge.
8. Finally, insert the current refilled cartridge into the printer and run the alignment. Your printer will now detect the cartridge as full.

What HP printer models will this work for?

Cartridge filling problems are relatively common. While there may be specific ways to fix this issue in some of the latest models, these reset methods work well on older and newer generation HP printer models.

Low ink is a situation that can worry any HP printer owner if they don't have a replacement on hand. Not being able to use a full cartridge because the printer doesn't recognize it is even more frustrating. However, a hard reset using one of the described methods should fix the problem.

Either way, it's important to perform a hard reset on your computer as soon as possible because your cartridges shouldn't be disconnected from your printer for more than 30 minutes. If this happens, the ink may dry out and clog the nozzles. After removing all the cartridges, be sure to wipe off any excess ink before reinserting them into their slots.

Have you tried resetting your HP printer after refilling ink? How was it? Let us know in the comments section below.