is your NDS tree partitioned???
if it is here is a response I got from somone at IBM

ADSM development received a message from Novell stating that the TSANDS.NLM
for NetWare 5.0 is not working correctly.  This problem has been fixed with
TSANDS.NLM for NDS 8.  NDS on NetWare 5.0 is being changes so that the
TSANDS.NLM that is working with NDS 8 can be used on NetWare 5.0, and will
be resolved in support pack 4.

Please contact Novell on incident # 2225204, if you have question
concerning this issue.

      This is what is causing the problem in ADSM in backing up a
partitioned NDS in Netware 5:
     All ADSM customer trying to backup a partitioned NDS on NetWare 5.00
cannot.
     In researching ADSM Development found that 'NWSMTSScanNextDataSet'
does not
     work correctly on NetWare 5.00 with a partitioned NDS.  ADSM does a
     'NWSMTSScanDataSetBegin' and in the scanControl ADSM set scanType to
     'NWSM_DO_NOT_TRAVERSE'.  After doing the 'NWSMTSScanDataSetBegin' ADSM
get the
     sequence number and pass it to 'NWSMTSScanNextDataSet'.  ADSM expect
to
     receive each data set under the .[Root] as a child and parent with out
     traversing the tree.  But 'NWSMTSScanNextDataSet' ignores the scantype
flag
     'NWSM_DO_NOT_TRAVERSE' and returns all objects under the tree.

     Because the api ignores the scantype flag it causes problems for ADSM.
ADSM
     expects to be able to traverse the tree based on the parent flag.
ADSM does
     not expect 'NWSMTSScanNextDataSet' to do this.  As a result ADSM
parses and
     NDS object names incorrectly.

     ADSM Development have tested 'NWSMTSScanDataSetBegin' and
'NWSMTSScanNextDataSet' with scanType of
     'NWSM_DO_NOT_TRAVERSE' with the following Novell NetWare OS's and they
work correctly.

          4.11 with out NDS partitions, using TSANDS.NLM (4.14).
          4.11 with NDS partitioned, using TSANDS.NLM (4.14).
          4.20 with out NDS partition.
          5.00 with out NDS partition, using TSANDS.NLM (5.00).

     It is only on NetWare 5.00 with a partitioned NDS that the scanType is
ignored.

     In testing, ADSM Development used the following type of NDS tree with
the O=ADSM as a partition.

               [Root]
                 *ADSM
                 *  *DMMOCK
                 *  *admin
                 *  *DMMOCK_VOL1
                 *  *NLS_LSP_DMMOCK
                 *  *SMS SMDR Group
                    .
                  (and so on)
                    .
                 *  *Development
                 *  *  *Storman
                 *  *  *all adsm users
                 *  *mock
                 *  *DMMOCK SMS RPC
                 *Security

     With scanType set to 'NWSM_DO_NOT_TRAVERSE' I would expect the
following to be returned:
           .[Root]
           .O=ADSM.[Root]
           .CN=Security.[Root]


     But on NetWare 5.00 with a partitioned NDS set to .ADSM we get back
the following
     from scannextdataset, starting with .[Root]:
           .[Root]
           .O=ADSM.[Root]
           .CN=Security.[Root]
           .CN=DMMOCK.O=ADSM.[Root]
           .CN=admin.O=ADSM.[Root]
           .CN=DMMOCK_VOL1.O=ADSM.[Root]
           .CN=NLS_LSP_DMMOCK.O=ADSM.[Root]
           .CN=SMS SMDR Group.O=ADSM.[Root]
           .CN=DMMOCK Backup Queue.O=ADSM.[Root]
           .CN=DNSDHCP-GROUP.O=ADSM.[Root]
           .CN=DNS-DHCP.O=ADSM.[Root]
           .CN=RootServerInfo.O=ADSM.[Root]
           .NLS:Publisher=Novell+NLS:Product=NetWare 5 Conn
SCL+NLS:Version=500.O=ADSM.[Root]
           .NLS:Publisher=Novell+NLS:Product=NetWare 5
Server+NLS:Version=500.O=ADSM.[Root]
           .CN=SAS Service - DMMOCK.O=ADSM.[Root]
           .CN=LDAP Server - DMMOCK.O=ADSM.[Root]
           .CN=LDAP Group - DMMOCK.O=ADSM.[Root]
           .OU=Development.O=ADSM.[Root]
           .CN=mock.O=ADSM.[Root]
           .CN=DMMOCK SMS RPC.O=ADSM.[Root]