Bugs in AT&T cpio?

[Kenneth Herron]

This has happened too many times to be a coincidence.

I provide technical support for several sites running AT&T Sysv/386 3.2.1.
All of the machines (6386 WGS's) are configured with AT&T 60-meg tape
drives.

Any attempt to reload a large portion of the file system from a cpio tape
invariably results in a screwed-up file system; the most visible 
symptom being 25 random files in /usr/bin being linked together.
It's not always the same files, and it's not always the same file 
being linked to, but it's always 25 links.  There are other problems;
rather than chase them all down we invariably end up rebuilding the
system from scratch.

This scuttled plans to do quick system installations via a floppy-based
unix that can read the tape drive; I have the floppy but can't build
a reliable file system except from the foundation set.  I've also had
this happen when reading a tape "on top" of an installed system.

Has anyone else seen this?  Any suggestions for getting around it?
-- 
Kenneth Herron                                            kherron at ms.uky.edu
University of Kentucky                                        (606) 257-2975
Department of Mathematics 
                                "Never trust gimmicky gadgets" -- the Doctor