Apologies for the OT, but I figured there's loads of expertise on the list ...

 NetBSD 2.0.2 being a no-go, I'm trying to transfer NetBSD 2.1 to my old
 3000/OS3.1. While I previously used a Sun QIC-150 drive, I'm now trying
 to use a Sony SDT-S9000 DAT drive to transfer the files.

 Problem is, it won't work: I'm getting tape I/O errors. I'm using the
 BTN tape handler, v3.0 from 1995 (!!!), and couldn't see anything newer
 on Aminet. tar at both ends is GNU tar.

 Any ideas/suggestions/alternatives? I'll go back to QIC, but it would have
 been so nice to use the faster and bigger DAT drive ...