tapetools and VMS Backup tapes

I slapped an AHA 1640 PCMCIA card in my Linux laptop, compiled tapetools 0.4 and 0.6 and started shoving tapes in my TSZ07. I wrote these tapes myself a number of years ago, and have finally gotten around to attempting to extract them. Things seemed to go fine, except that on certain tapes, I saw a page or two of partial records reported - i.e. - these VMS BACKUP tapes were written with a block size of 16384, and some tapes report ~2500 records of 16384 bytes (1600 bpi), and some report a few hundred records of 16384, then a few at a smaller number, then more at 16384, etc. I'd think there were some read problems, but the tape wasn't shoe-shining - it buzzed along at full tilt. Does anyone here have any experience with reading VMS BACKUP tapes with tapetools? Can you share your observations? I haven't yet tried reading the files - I know there were some VMS BACKUP extractors in C years ago, and I've even used them, but I'll probably have to re-find and rebuilt them. I could also fire up simh and VMS, but at the moment, my VMS install CDs are somewhere else. I'm really just after the data for now - it's all the stuff I worked on at Software Results years ago - all the COMBOARD software as well as a wad of personal files (one-off programs, stuff from newsgroups, etc.). I still have the Fuji Eagle that was spun down a few weeks after the backup was made, but I haven't attempted to power that up yet to see if it still works. Thanks for sharing any tapetools stories (and any suggestions about 'modern' VMS BACKUP extractors). -ethan