Sometimes we encountered a complex problem, and have no idea to know what's wrong.
Try divide and conquer, maybe you'll see things more clear and finish the job more quickly. 
cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=6.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=edgy
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 6.10"
My result would be
eric@eric-asus-nb:~$ cat /etc/lsb-releasecpio: 0511-904 skipping 732944 bytes to get back in phase!
One or more files lost and the previous file is possibly corrupt!
This made me hate the cpio format.
Today I finally found the correct usage
cpio -idcmv < *.cpio