[lug] Tape always rewinds after mt command

[William Petty]

I am using Suse 8.1 and needed to read in an old tar tape that was created as
multiple files.  My problem is, when I use mt to skip to the second file, 
it does so,
pauses for a few seconds, and then rewinds back to the beginning of the tape
before returning the command prompt.  So, any tar command always reads the
first file on the tape (Which also rewinds when done).  The tape drive is an
Exabyte 8500 8mm and the SCSI controller is an LSI (Symbios) 53875.  All
drivers are default from the 8.1 installation.
Thanks for any info you can provide.