Patent ID: 7566108

Claim:
A recording apparatus comprising: a carriage including a plurality of slots for carrying head cartridges, respectively, said carriage being movable while carrying at least one head cartridge; a guiding member for guiding a head cartridge during mounting and removal relative to one of the slots and for preventing movement of said carriage by being abutted by the head cartridge when mounting of the head cartridge is incomplete; an encoder for detecting movement of said carriage; a detecting portion for detecting an electrical connection between the at least one of the head cartridges and said carriage; and discriminating means for discriminating that the at least one head cartridge is not properly mounted to said carriage when said encoder, after an operation of mounting the at least one head cartridge to said carriage, does not detect the movement of said carriage, and said detecting portion, after said encoder does not detect the movement of said carriage, does not detect electrical connection between said carriage and the at least one head cartridge.