Tar help requested

[mark at umcp-cs.UUCP]

Directory checksum could mean that the tape is bad.  

But in actual practice on our machine it almost always means
that the reading and writing blocking factors are not the same.
The most usual blocking factors are 1 and 20.
This will give you a blocking factor of 1 (replace rmt12 with your
favorite tape physical device):
tar tfb /dev/rmt12 1
This a blocking factor of 20:
tar tfb /dev/rmt12 20
-- 
spoken:	mark weiser
UUCP:	{seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!umcp-cs!mark
CSNet:	mark at umcp-cs
ARPA:	mark.umcp-cs at CSNet-Relay