--- tar-1.15.1/src/sparse.c.vfatTruncate	2006-02-02 13:38:18.000000000 -0500
+++ tar-1.15.1/src/sparse.c	2006-02-02 14:06:37.000000000 -0500
@@ -345,6 +345,8 @@
 sparse_extract_region (struct tar_sparse_file *file, size_t i)
 {
   size_t write_size;
+  struct stat st;
+  off_t oldoff;
 
   if (!lseek_or_error (file, file->stat_info->sparse_map[i].offset))
     return false;
@@ -354,8 +356,20 @@
   if (write_size == 0)
     {
       /* Last block of the file is a hole */
-      if (file->seekable && sys_truncate (file->fd))
+      if (file->seekable && sys_truncate (file->fd)) {	
 	truncate_warn (file->stat_info->orig_file_name);
+
+        /* wrapper around ftruncate:
+	 * ftruncate may fail to grow the size of a file with some OS and filesystem
+	 * combinations. Linux and vfat/fat is one example. If this is the case do
+	 * a write to grow the file to the desired length.
+	 */	
+	off_t length = lseek (file->fd, (off_t) 0, SEEK_CUR);
+	if( (length >= 0) && (fstat( file->fd, &st ) != -1) && (st.st_size < length) ) {
+	  lseek( file->fd, length - 1, SEEK_SET);
+	  write( file->fd, '\0', 1);
+	}
+      }
     }
   else while (write_size > 0)
     {