I've been having a lot of problems with my SCSI tape drive in the past week or so ("Unrecognizable archive", etc.). Another user also told me in private email that he'd also been having trouble with his SCSI tape drive. (I have an Exabyte 8505; I do not know what kind of SCSI tape drive the other user had. I do not know if these problems occur with DATs.)
Dirk Eddelbuettel kindly suggested today that I try the new (2.0.13) kernel. I took his advice and it worked. (Nothing new there!) Suggestion: if you have a SCSI tape drive, you might wish to check that you can read from it, and/or you might wish to upgrade your kernel. Susan Kleinmann