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Tar error: cannot write: invalid argument

I am trying to do a tar backup to a locally attached tape drive. The tape drive is attached via an Adaptec 2930 SCSI card, and is a DAT drive with the SCSI ID 3. The device file that I am using is /dev/st0.

Whenever I try to do a backup I use the following syntax:

# tar -cvf /dev/st0 /tmp <directory>

The error message I am getting is the following:

tar: /dev/st0: Cannot write: Invalid argument
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now.

The operating system is Fedora Core 5, and the version of tar is GNU tar 1.15.1.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kaplan71

# tar -cvf /dev/st0 /tmp <directory>

You have too many parameters. Remove /tmp and see what happens.

When I run the command tar -cvf /dev/st0 the error message I get is the following:

tar: Cowardly refusing to create an empty archive.

Well now you don't have enough parameters. Apparently you removed both the /tmp and the <directory>. Here is an example to back up the /home directory tree to /dev/st0.

Code:

tar -cvf /dev/st0 /home