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

[Peter N. Spotts]

On Mon, 15 May 2006 20:03:44 -0700
"Randy Forston" <rforston at earthlink.net> wrote:

> 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
> 
> 
Hey Randy,

Thanks for the idea (and sorry to take so long to reply -- my day job,
you understand). But it looks as though Maxtor's utility is
windows-only; I tried it with wine, just for giggles, and that didn't
help. The utility keep asking me to close the write-only window on the
floppy, which is closed already. I even made sure permissions were set
so user could activate it, thinking that maybe the utility was seeing a
permissions problem rather than a physical problem on the floppy. Oh
well...

Pete

-- 
Peter N. Spotts | Science Correspondent
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