I'm a relative newbie, so be nice -- I am attempting to install a Seagate 12/24 DAT (SCSI) and can not seem to read tapes made from another system (the other guy swears he is using tar). When I put the tape in the drive, it lights up and seem to rewind. When I issue the command "tar -tvf /dev/st0" the system returns the following message: Tar: /dev/st0: cannot read: Input/Output error Tar:at the beginning of tape, quitting now Tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now This has happened on a few tapes. At one point to took one of the tapes that didn't work (gave the same error as above). I performed a same back up using "tar -cvf /dev/st0" and it seemed to work. I then issued the command "tar -tvf /dev/st0" and the tape was listed. That kind of tells me that the tape drive is working. Any ideas will be greatly appreciated. Note that whenever I type in a tar command, the drive light on the tape device comes on. Thanks in advance for any assistance Thanks, Stu Cater, CPA, GSEC stu.cater@MISPros.com