Linux and Tape Backups

[omegahalo-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org (Chris O'Connell)]

Hi Everyone,

I have recently found a box of tapes in our server room.  I would like to
utilize these tapes to backup a server that I have running Snort and Nagios.
 The server is presently backed up to a simple flash/thumb drive.

I've erased the tapes using the *mt* command.  I then rewound the tapes.  I
have a variety of questions:
1.  Does the mt -f /dev/st0 -erase check the tape for bad sectors/spots?
2.  Is there a way to list the contents of the ENTIRE tape?
3.  What is the best way to backup the entire disk (including SQL
databases)?

Thanks in advance for any help,

Chris