To Connect to DAT DDS4 USB tape drive in Win 7 64bit

[conn.lee]

Hi, I have a HP DDS 4 tape USB drive, I'd like to write a vi to connect to it, in Windows 7 64 bits, and do File I/O.

Did some digging and got the Win 7 64 bit tape driver, I'm stuck on how to make connection from Labview. The USB tape drive does not mount in Windows so there is no drive letter to make a path string.

I did manage to get it connected in VISA, (new to VISA), but it is bound to pacific device, I wonder if there is a way to make a generic solution, a Labview app, exe distribution, to connect and File I/O to any given USB tape drive. 

Many thanks!

[conn.lee]

emm a day has passed and no reply yet.. I've been googling but very little online apart from 'Tape drive is acient technology phased out long ago' ''Windows moving away from Tape drive.''..... 

I wonder if anyone know the call library function I should use, is there anything in kernel32.dll that would connect to tape drive..?

I also found Fileapi.h and winbase.h, WMI class, CIM all seem relevant, any pointers on how to use them to connect to tape drive from labview much appreciated!

The reason why we are doing this is our system is upgrading from XP to Win 7, the old systems use Dat 40 for file I/O, not only archiving, and must carry on using tape I/O in Win 7, no wriggle room, hence I've been pulling my hair out for the past few weeks. 

Any comments ideas please drop a line, thanks~