I wonder if there is some incompatibility when reading 60MB tapes in a 150MB device. -- I've read hundreds of 60 meg tapes on 150 meg drives. What probably has happened is the end of the tape where the direction reverses either has been damaged due to the tape being slightly sticky with age, or there is now a pile of oxide and binder where the direction reversed. Whoever developed serpentine transports apparently never thought about the problem of oxide and binder shedding as the tape ages (or gets sticky). You end up with gunk on the head, which deposits itself on the tape when the head reverses direction. Since the real size of a QIC tape block is 512 bytes, you might try reading 512 bytes at a time to keep the drive parts from the forward and backward tape directions. This also minimizes the data lost if a block can't be recovered. The down side is it can slow transfers down a lot.