I too have an Exabyte 8200. Mine works, so I mention what I do. The primary line I use is /sbin/dump 0uBf 2500000 /dev/nst0 / Notice the 0 for a whole dump, the B for size 2.5MB (2500000) You merely needed to tell it how long your tape is, otherwise the default is old-fashioned small.
If you have a Buslogic SCSI controller, it could be incompatible with your Exabyte tape -- search the debian-user archives for the last couple months, or send me email (Exabyte has a firmware change you can make). Both Buslogic and Exabyte are giving the Linux community some help, Exabyte through their web page. Here is part of a script I worked up, running it weekly as a cron job. log_file=/usr/local/backup/rabbit-log/rabbit_`/bin/date +%b-%d-%Y_%I:%M%p` touch $log_file #This allows entries below to append $logfile, #so the first entry need not be unique. /bin/mt -f /dev/nst0 rewind # The total becomes greater than 2.5GB, # so I now backup "/mirror" on a separate tape. for filesystem in \ / /usr /var \ /home /usr/local do if [ -z "$chunk" ]; then chunk=0; else chunk=`expr $chunk + 1`; fi echo ' ' >>$log_file 2>&1 echo ' ' >>$log_file 2>&1 echo "---------- BACKING-UP ONTO TAPE-CHUNK \ $chunk `hostname`:${filesystem} ----------" >>$log_file 2>&1 # /sbin/dump 0uf /dev/nst0 $filesystem >>$log_file 2>&1 /sbin/dump 0uBf 2500000 /dev/nst0 $filesystem >>$log_file 2>&1 done /bin/mt -f /dev/nst0 offline #So, you should insert a weekly backup-tape on Saturday.