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HP 35470A help

 
David Flores_1
New Member

HP 35470A help

I was given a computer system (win nt 4.0) with a scsi card and a hp 35470 drive attached. My task is to write code to start reading data off tapes. I have some questions
1) can i access the tape drive like any other drive?
2) can i use standard c/c++/SDK calls like fopen, cin, CFile, etc..?
3) what would be a going starting point?

Thanks in advance for any help.
David
3 REPLIES 3
Joseph T. Wyckoff
Honored Contributor

Re: HP 35470A help

Assuming this tape drive has an NT mini-driver (i.e. normal NT tape driver) I would start by looking at NT documentation, along the lines of the DDK.

One of the advantages of the NT mini-driver model is that the hardware manufacturer can specify a minimum interface, and then forget about software issues altogether. The OS (the mini-driver model) assumes most of the responsibilty for making things work.

Given that, I don't frankly expect that you will find out a great deal of information about how to program for this tape drive.

Look instead for information about this drive technology (i.e. what are DLT issues, what are DDS issues, etc.)

If this is a DLT drive, take a look at Quantum's web site - all DLT's come from Quantum - we add a power supply, some memory perhaps, definately some firmware... but Quantum KNOWS DLT like no one else.

That said, there may be a scsi specification somewhere that breaks down certain registers into meanings, the key words are going to be things like Sense Key (SK), and Additional Sense Key (ASK.) Quantum will have the basic information for DLT's - start there. For some advanced stuff, you can be sure a change in the firmware will make a difference... but until you have a specific question, I doubt you will get a specific answer.

Good Luck.
Omniback and NT problems? double check name resolution, DNS/HOSTS...
Joseph T. Wyckoff
Honored Contributor

Re: HP 35470A help

This sounds like the data is already on the tapes? What is the data source? One of the issues is block size - make sure you understand the original data format very well.

You may want to consult the vendor of your SCSI controller - support of certain block sizes may require hacks to the registry.

Good Luck.
Omniback and NT problems? double check name resolution, DNS/HOSTS...
David Flores_1
New Member

Re: HP 35470A help

Well I was having problems with getting CreateFile to work, but I finally did it. I can get some basic information from the drive. However the format is propietary, so I guess I just read the data in a stream put in the propiertary structures. Do the reset of the SDK calls work, i.e. ReadFile, WriteFile?