HP DAT 24 INSTALL ON DIMENSION 8400

I have a travan 1000 tape drive on my older computer that goes into the 3.5 inch floppy drive bay. Unfortunately I can't install it on my 8400 without removing the front panel. Either that, or get an external case for it. And plug it in that way.

You're lucky with your tape drive. It appears all you need is a 5.25 inch drive bay (or empty CDROM bay). But the scsi connector may be a problem. I found this link concerning your tape drive:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/lpg29150/lpg29150.pdf

And I had a buddy in college who had a SCSI PCI card installed in his computer for a hard drive. I found one on tiger direct:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=134580&CatId=509

I haven't read into it though, so you better check up on it make sure its what you want to do. The card is 90 bucks. Thats a lot of money.

I think I should mention though that these older devices? I've seen casings for them. Casings that make internal devices external, and plug in thru external cables. You may want to look around. I'll betcha there's even a way to make your tape drive a USB device this way. Some of them even have their own power supplies.

Message Edited by william551 on 09-07-200610:24 AM

Message Edited by william551 on 09-07-200610:27 AM

I have an 8400 too and I don't think its SCSI. That's why you might need the card. These newer drives are SATA. SCSI is an older type of interface.

You might even find an SCSI card on an older computer. My buddy's computer was a Gateway that used it with a PCI card. And thats all you need is the PCI card to connect it up to, and then just put it in the CDROM drive bay.

You might even be able to get a PCI SCSI card from HP. Tell them you have a Dell computer, and you need an SCSI PCI card to hook in your DAT 24 drive. That one at TigerDirect is pretty expensive.