Using Gparted to restore an outboard USB drive -- how long should this take?

[Randy Forston]

ubuntu-users-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com wrote:
> Folks,
>
> I'm using a Maxtor 300gb outboard USB hard drive with Ubuntu 5.10
> installed on a Toshiba Satellite 1905-S303 laptop. Somehow, the
> Maxtor's partition table got bollixed up, and how I'm trying to
> repartition it (fortunately, little data stored there). Gparted saw it
> and assigned it sda1, but it shows the drive as having an unknown file
> system, even though it originally was linux native. So I've got it
> setting up the entire drive as a single ext3 partion. But it's taking
> forever to execute the repartitioning process (with no activity
> showing up on Gkrellm's monitor for sda1). Interestingly, fdisk also
> sees the drive as sda1, and with a linux partition, so I suppose
> something is happening. How long should it take to complete this
> partitioning process on a 2.4 GHz machine?
>
> With best regards,
>
> Pete
<snip>

Pete,

My guess is that you have some 'junk' data in the boot partition that the
partition editor can't deal with, (recognize or delete).

I've seen this a lot.

You need a utility that will zero, (wipe), the first 63 sectors of the boot
block for you.
To the next OS you install, the drive will seem as tho it's never been
formatted.

Maxtor should have a utility on their website to do this, if you don't
already have one.
They used to use their own version of OnTrack Disk Manager, (which will do
this), free on their website.

You DON'T want to do ANY kind of low-level formatting, just wipe the first
63 sectors of the boot track.

Better time factor, too.
Seconds, as opposed to hours.....


Regards,
Randy