problem with extraction of .tgz file on Redhat AS 3.0

[Girish N]

Hi,

we hv been using tar -czvf to take backup of one of our local 
development Oracle Database files [15 files] onto the same server 
[different mount point]. This method just helped us to quickly take a 
backup onto the same server & when needed for restoration, it was 
faster[we hv been doing this without any probs for quite sometime now].

But, last week, the extraction of this .tgz file failed with the error

# tar -xzvf datatop.tgz
gzip: stdin: invalid compressed data--format violated
tar: Unexpected EOF in archive
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
#

Suspecting a one-off case of file corruption, we rescheduled the .tgz 
backup. But unfortunately, the .tgz got corrupted again on the second 
day. This time around we suspected a bad file-system & we ran a check on 
the SAN Harddisk [onto which the .tgz backup was happening], but we 
couldn't find any issues. Hence we mounted a new SAN harddisk & 
rescheduled the .tgz backups onto this harddisk. But today again the 
.tgz extraction is failing with the same error.

The only thing that we were able to find is that one of the database 
file [out of 15 files] is in inconsistent state, does this mean that - a 
tar -czvf backup will fail if one of the file during backup is 
inconsistent [or corrupted?]

This is happening on one of our Redhat AS 3.0 server [we hv 10 Redhat 
dev servers & none of them r hvn'ng this issue]

the command used for backup is "# tar -czvf /SAN02/datatop.tgz /u02/datatop"

Request you assistance in resolving this issue.

Thanks & Regards
Girish