You can perform rudimentary consistency checking on an attached streaming tape device with the tapechk command. Some hardware malfunctions of a streaming tape drive can be detected by simply reading a tape. The tapechk command provides a way to perform tape reads at the file level.
For example, to check the first three files on a streaming tape device, enter:
tapechk 3
See the tapechk command in the AIX Version 4.3 Commands Reference for the exact syntax.