Patent ID: 7929879

Claim:
An image forming apparatus, comprising: an image forming apparatus body; a cassette attaching section having a media supplying roller that supplies media; a media cassette capable of being removably installed in the cassette attaching section, said media cassette comprising: a loading plate mounted in the media cassette that at least partially supports the media stacked up in the media cassette, a pushing up member which pushes up the loading plate to the media supplying roller, and a plate holding portion which engages the loading plate and holds the loading plate in a first position against the pushing up force of the pushing up member, said first position being such that the media is kept from contacting the media supplying roller; a release portion which opposes an outer frame of the media cassette; a first ground conducting route which is established between the loading plate and a grounding point when the media is not in contact with the media supply roller; and a second ground conducting route which is established through the media supplying roller, said second ground conducting route facing at least a portion of the first ground conducting route across the media; wherein in the process of installing the media cassette in the cassette attaching section: (1) the loading plate is held in the first position until the media cassette is moved to a predetermined position within the cassette attaching section, and (2) as the cassette is further moved toward a position where it is completely attached to the image forming apparatus body, the loading plate is released from the first position at the predetermined position, freeing the pushing member to push up to the loading plate to the media supplying roller such that media contacts the media roller to thereby establish the second ground conduction route, said predetermined position being that position at which the plate holding portion contacts the release portion, the first ground conducting route being formed before the plate holding portion contacts the release portion, wherein the first ground conducting route results in the media cassette and the image forming apparatus body being changed to a connected state from an electrically disconnected state when the media is loaded on the loading plate of the media cassette and the media is arranged between the media supplying roller and the loading plate, and wherein the first ground conducting route is arranged to pass under the stacked media on the image forming apparatus body side to the plate holding portion, when the media cassette is arranged apart from the image forming apparatus body and is oriented in a direction to be attached to the image forming apparatus body.