Apparatus and method of blindly inserting, extracting, and manipulating connectors within an enclosure

A tool is disclosed for blindly threading, connecting, and disconnecting a cable with respect to another cable or a connector. The tool threads the cable through a hole in a canister containing a tape drive, manipulates the cable, and inserts the cable into the connector while it is deep within the canister without opening the canister in order to connect a host computer to the tape drive. The tool is also used to disconnect the drive from the host by unlatching the cable from the connector and extracting the cable from the drive and the canister, again without opening the canister. The tool features a support for the cables and connector, and a releasable latch on the support. The latch includes a pair of mechanical clips in two places that are located along the length of the support.