You may want to either tar to the disk ( if less than 2GB) or try piping tar into dump to the tape, but this may cause the same error. Seeing as you aren't compressing within tar, then why not use dump and pump that to the tape. It handles multi-tapes properly, and will preserve ownership and permissisons. If you have /home on a separate partition then incrementals would also be possible. Paul "Robert P. Goldman" wrote: > > I'm having a terrible time trying to get a SCSI tape drive to work > with tar. My problem comes with multi-file archives. I use a command > like the following: > > tar --label "mn65-zippy home backup $date" --multi-volume --listed-incremental="home-backup-list" --preserve-permissions --exclude=tape-backup-excludes -cMf /dev/st0 /home > > [date is bound in this context] > > tar fills the tape and then...does the wrong thing. First it gives me > an error message about its inability to close the first tape, then > when I insert the second tape, hoping that the first error isn't > fatal, tar crashes: > > [root at host]# ./home-backup > tar: Removing leading `/' from archive names > tar: WARNING: Cannot close /dev/st0 (3, -1): Input/output error > Prepare volume #2 for /dev/st0 and hit return: > tar: Cannot write to /dev/st0: Input/output error > tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now > [root at host]# > > Here's info about tar on my system: > > tar --version > tar (GNU tar) 1.13.11 > > Copyright 1988, 92,93,94,95,96,97,98, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc. > This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO > warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. > > Written by John Gilmore and Jay Fenlason. > > Any idea what I could do to fix or at least diagnose this problem? > > Many thanks! > Robert > > _______________________________________________ > tclug-list mailing list > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > https://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list