How to access USB Tape Drives on Windows?

[hemanth_hp]

Hi All,
Please Can anybody let me know the way to access the USB tape drives on Windows programatically and issue scsi commands to the tape drive. Is it possible to issue the scsi commands to it? Any sample code would help me.

Thanks & Regards
Hemanth

 

[LOST6200]

You could explained the contxt. Why dontl; you contact manufacturer, resseller or distributor? Is the prosuct out of production?

 

[Chewy509]

Windows enumerates all tape drives the same way irrespective of the interface, eg SCSI, IDE, USB, etc. Just connect to the drive via the HAL and you'd be fine, (Just send the SCSI command to report capabilities before issuing other commands, then the normal RST, INIT commands for your device).

If you need lower level access, contact the manufacturer of the unit for details. However I do NOT recommend this, as you could possibly fubar the RSM service, resulting in having to reboot the server... (unless you disable RSM, in which case that won't matter).

 

[hemanth_hp]

But the device path for createfile API is somwhat \\.\BTIAUSB. Is this correct? Or is there any other device path for accessing the USB tape devices.

After getting the handle to the device can we issue inquiry commands and other scsi commands to the device.

Using a tape miniclass driver plus inbox usbstor.sys, whether that scsi pass through is supported or not. can we use \\.\tape%d to open the adapter.
without a tape driver loaded is there any other adapater name I can use.

 

[Chewy509]

But the device path for createfile API is somwhat \\.\BTIAUSB. Is this correct? Or is there any other device path for accessing the USB tape devices.

After getting the handle to the device can we issue inquiry commands and other scsi commands to the device.

Using a tape miniclass driver plus inbox usbstor.sys, whether that scsi pass through is supported or not. can we use \\.\tape%d to open the adapter.
without a tape driver loaded is there any other adapater name I can use.

I don't mean to be rude, but do you have access to MSDN/Technet? It's all in there... If you do have a MSDN subscription, ASK MICROSOFT. That is what you are paying for.

\\.\Tape%d is the filename to access the media, and \\.\btiausb (or as appropriate for your device) is the filename to access the drive. Once you have a handle, you should be able to issue SCSI commands to the device via the appropriate API call.

Also have you asked on news://microsoft.public.win32.* or news://microsoft.public.dotnet.* ?

Some of the more device driver oriented groups will be of more benefit than this forum.

PS. I do NOT do people homework assignments. (Hence the lack of examples).

 

[hemanth_hp]

But is there any way to enumerate the USB tape devices like wither from the registry or using the SetupApi calls where i can get the devices names. Please do suggest any hint.