gtar failing, please help!

[Kevin A. Pieckiel]

On Wed, Feb 02, 2005 at 02:03:45PM -0500, Kevin A. Pieckiel wrote:
> I have some backup scripts that manipulate a tape library and tape
> drive to perform my nightly backups.  Ever since the switch from
> gtar to bsdtar in the base system, gtar fails to write any data
> to my tape and usually puts my SCSI bus in an unusable state.  I
> must then issue a camcontrol reset command to free up the tape
> drive for use.

Just for grins, I tried playing with dump.  Dump fails as well:

# dump -0 -a -b 64 -C 32 -f /dev/nsa0 -n -u -L /    
  DUMP: Date of this level 0 dump: Wed Feb  2 14:27:05 2005
  DUMP: Date of last level 0 dump: the epoch
  DUMP: Dumping snapshot of /dev/amrd0s1a (/) to /dev/nsa0
  DUMP: mapping (Pass I) [regular files]
  DUMP: Cache 32 MB, blocksize = 65536
  DUMP: mapping (Pass II) [directories]
  DUMP: estimated 176863 tape blocks.
  DUMP: dumping (Pass III) [directories]
  DUMP: write error 64 blocks into volume 1
                                                                               
Broadcast Message from kpieckiel at hr-stc-file2.smartrafficenter.net             
        (/dev/ttyp0) at 14:27 EST...                                           
                                                                               
Message from the dump program to all operators                              
                                                                               
DUMP: NEEDS ATTENTION: write error 64 blocks into volume 1                     
DUMP WRITE ERROR!                                                              
                                                                               
  DUMP: Do you want to restart?: ("yes" or "no")

I just don't know what to do.  I'm half tempted to use Windows for
the fileserver at this point.  I *need* working backups!