C1533A needs W98 driver

[CA788093]

I have a recently constructed Pentium 4 computer, running under W98SE. I have installed an Adaptec 2940W SCSI adapter card in the PCI bus. An HP C1533A DDS-2 tape drive is the sole occupant of the SCSI bus served by the 2940W. A little LED is visible on the front panel of the tape drive when the computer is on; yes, the power is connected to the tape drive.

W98 Device Manager acknowledges that the SCSI adapter is properly installed. Device Mgr also sees the C1533A, but lists it as a "?" type of device; it says the driver needs to be installed.

I have looked everywhere for such a driver, on W98 source CD, on HP support website, in the W98 installation itself, but no luck. Can anyone tell me what I must do to get this tape drive properly configured for W98?

This tape drive, in connection with the same Adaptec card, worked fine in a different computer; it was a Novell 4.11 server. I can't say it worked under Windows before. I know the hardware is good, though. The firmware is probably out of date, however, in case that matters.

Thanks,
John

[CA788093]

I now realize that, under W98, the "driver" I sought is provided by third-party backup application software. I would expect, however, that under Windows NT, W2K, or XP, HP would supply a stand-alone driver.

I will provide excerpts from text I discovered on HP's website, below. Unfortunately, I can't remember the exact location of the article.

"Why doesn't HP supply DAT or DLT drivers for the Windows 95/98 platforms ...

"When you attach hardware, like a video card or CD-ROM to a system using Windows 95 or Windows 98 then a driver is needed to identify the hardware and make it work properly. With these examples, the operating system provides all the other necessary software to make everything work.

"With HP DAT and DLT drives and mechanisms the situation is a little different.
Although they still require drivers in order to be recognised and utilised by Windows 95/98, there is no software that is provided by Windows95/98 to operate them.
The software is generally called 'a backup application', specific examples would be Colorado Backup or Tapeware, and is installed separately. It is this backup application that contains the drivers that are needed.

"We believe that the confusion over this arises from two situations:

"1. We supply drivers for Windows NT, Netware and other platforms.
"The reason for this is that these come with their own built in backup application and earlier versions may not contain a driver that works with all our products.

"2. If you install your SCSI HBA (host bus adapter) and the DAT or DLT device before you install the backup application, then Windows 95/98 will prompt you for a driver or even put the DAT or DLT device automatically into 'Unsupported Devices'.
This is understandably confusing, as it is standard practice to ensure that every device is correctly identified as part of the installation process."