travan tape drives,

[Leigh Finch]

G'day all,
I'm just setting up a box with a travan tape drive. While using tar to write
a filesystem to the tape drive it comes up with an error saying that
transfers must be a multiple of 512. I then have to reset to do anything
with tape drive.
Dump will write everything, and then it says it is closing the tape, and
stops there. tape drives light remains on and nothing can be heard coming
from it.

I'm using the following command:
tar -czf /dev/ast0 /home

am I doing something wrong?

cheers
Leigh Finch