>>>Hi,
>>>
>>>I have an old (don't remember when we bought it) printer HP C6300 - All in One. I wanted to test how to scan a document into a USB drive plugged into the printer. After I go through the steps (not complicated) I see on the USB stick a file .HPIMAGE.VFS. It looks like this file (by date and time) has all images that I scanned. Or maybe not. But when I plug the USB into the computer and try to open this file, I get nowhere. I looked through the user manual (online) and no reference to this format. Googling didn't produce any useful result.
>>>Do you know how to open this .HPIMAGE.VHS without major time input?
>>
>>If you Google [.HPIMAGE.VFS] it looks like that's just a thumbnails file. Are the actual scan files in another folder on the USB stick?
>>
>>Are you sure you were doing the full scan and save, rather than just a prescan/preview?
>>
>>Do you have any options for saving such as destination folder, file type (TIFF, PDF etc)?
>>
>>Does the stick need a specific format e.g. FAT32? (NTFS may not work)
>
>I did look for another file/folder on the USB stick and no folders found with any files. Yes, I am sure, the little screen on the printer said, Scan complete and saved. I didn't see any option for a different format. Maybe if I would connect the printer to the computer, it would have more options. But when I stick the USB stick right into the USB slot on the printer and use the menu to save to the USB, this is all I got. Interesting that I can see the file .HPIMAGE.VFS from the Windows explorer. But when I go to the command prompt and then to this drive (I:), I don't see this file.
>
>UPDATE. I found that the attribute of .HPIMAGE.VFS is Hidden. When I change the attribute, I can see it in the command window. But still, no actual scanned image. Although by size, the .HPIMAGE.VFS does seem to be the file that has the scanned images.

I'd look at your general scan settings. You should be able to specify basic parameters such as black & white/grayscale/colour, scan DPI settings, output file type etc. If the scans are uncompressed e.g. TIFF or BMP, they will likely be large, multiple tens of MB each. Compressed JPG/PNG, maybe PDF would probably be a lot smaller.

That's about all I can suggest, Google [.HPIMAGE.VFS] if you think it's more than just thumbnails and you want to open it or view its contents.