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

[Matthew Kuiken]

C Hamel wrote:
> On Monday 15 May 2006 14:47, Peter N. Spotts 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
>> --
>> Peter N. Spotts | Science Correspondent
>> The Christian Science Monitor
>> One Norway Street, Boston, MA 02038  USA
>> Office: 1-671-450-2449 | Office in home: 1-508-520-3139
>> www.csmonitor.com | www.peterspotts.net
>> pspotts at alum.mit.edu | Amateur-radio call: KC1JB
>>     
>
> I'm only guessing, of course, but it seems there may be a prob w/the hardware.  
> I used to own a Toshiba Satellite 2100CDT & the HD on that was reported as 
> hda, not sda, for one thing.  For another, my 2.66ghz box partitioned a 60GB 
> drive in just a few seconds (via PQM from XP), b-4 I decided to make it a 
> single-boot box.
>
> Perhaps a little more info might help...?
>
> FWIW...
>   
But he's talking about an external USB drive, it *should* be an sda 
number...  As for how long it should take to repartition, sorry, I can't 
help you there.

-Matt