> the Amanda user has full read, write execute permissions to the required 
> directory and im backing up local drives, ie in disklist ive said 

What is the owner/group/access-bits on the devices?
I have this on mine (a linux system):

  $ ls -ld /dev/nst0 /dev/sg0
  crw-rw----    1 amanda   disk       9, 128 Aug 30  2001 /dev/nst0
  crw-rw----    1 root     amanda    21,   0 Aug 30  2001 /dev/sg0
  $ 


//Mats