tar: multi-volume archives

[1xused]

Looking at the tar man page, it seems I should be able to make multi-volume archives using tar. I planned to create the different volumes first, then use them as I wished. I cd'd to a mounted flash drive and used:

$ tar -cMvf multi.tar ~/bigfile

After the first volume was created, I moved it off the drive to my home folder and renamed it multi.p1.tar. I did something similar with the rest of the volumes. When I tried to untar the archive, just to make sure it'd work, it didn't.

$ tar -xMvf multi.p1.tar
home/user/bigfile
Prepare volume #2 for `multi.p1.tar' and hit return: ?
 n name        Give a new file name for the next (and subsequent) volume(s)
 q             Abort tar
 y or newline  Continue operation
 !             Spawn a subshell
 ?             Print this list
Prepare volume #2 for `multi.p1.tar' and hit return: n multi.p2.tar
tar: This volume is out of sequence
Prepare volume #2 for `multi.p2.tar' and hit return:

I tried all the volume names to be sure, but it said the same thing for each. I deleted the archive and tried remaking it, then untarring it again. The same thing happened. What am I doing wrong? If tar -M doesn't do what I think it does, is there another tool (hopefully already installed by default) that can work with multi-volume archive files?

[1xused]

I decided to try using 'tar -L #' to make the archive instead. I don't know why that worked when -M didn't, but it did.

$ tar -cvL 262144 -f ~/bigfile multi.p1.tar
home/user/bigfile
Prepare volume #2 for `multi.p1.tar' and hit return: n multi.p2.tar
$ tar -xMvf multi.p1.tar
home/user/bigfile
Prepare volume #2 for `multi.p1.tar' and hit return: n multi.p2.tar
$

I wrote again instead of deleting my first post because I thought someone else may be able to use this. An admin can delete this if he or she thinks otherwise.