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    #1

    How long does it take to ....

    for gparted to apply an EXT4 format to a 250GB USB HD?

    It's been running for four hours now and that doesn't seem right. I had previously formatted it with NTFS and it took all of one minute.

    I'm "assuming" that the formatting is scrubbing every sector. The msg posted at the top of the dialog says it "can take a long time" but I've never had a format take this long...
    "A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
    – John F. Kennedy, February 26, 1962.
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    #2
    Re: How long does it take to ....

    Myself, I went with ext3, and then used the Ubuntu ConvertFilesystemToExt4. Works like a champ.
    Windows no longer obstructs my view.
    Using Kubuntu Linux since March 23, 2007.
    "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data." - Sherlock Holmes​
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      #3
      Re: How long does it take to ....

      It's at FIVE HOURS as I type this. I may just let it run all night and see what happens. ("patience grasshopper" )

      The piece of data I didn't pass along was that this USB HD failed late last week for an individual and it contained several thousand photos and documents. She was running Windows and had been saving her newly taken photos (part-time photographer) when it died. I tried to mount it in my VM XP guest, which failed, so I tried "chkdsk /X /R" and it failed with "undetermined error" after "recovering" 946 files. The 947th file was ".", which always gives Windows utilities problems.

      I couldn't mount it in Kubuntu Lucid either, so I opened a Konsole and used
      Code:
      sudo dd if=/dev/sdb of=chelsea.dd bs=1M conv=noerror,sync count=10000M
      to create an image of the first 100G of the drive (and because I didn't have 250GB of free space on my notebook). I then used "Photo_Rec" (a GPL program found here) and ended up recovering 14,214 files. It took photo_rec about 12 hours to process that 100GB binary. After I moved those files to her new 1T USB HD (FreeAgent GoFlex) and then deleted them and the binary. I pulled down the next 100GB but photo_rec didn't find any files on it. I don't know how many photos or documents were lost, but I suppose that she'll find out soon enough. Anyway, she gave the drive to me because she doesn't trust it any more, even though it was new in July.

      BTW, that 1T GoFlex USB HD takes data in at 35Mb/s. It also contains an "installation" program, the main purpose of which is to install DRM so that the user can watch the 21 movies that come pre-installed on the drive. I suspect that after that program is run it erases the DRM installation software so that it can't be loaded into another PC. About half of the movies are interesting -- StarTrek XI, Ghosts, the Benjamin Button movie, etc. It costs $134 at Amazon.


      PS.: Thanks for the hint! If that HD isn't formatted by morning I will use it.


      "A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
      – John F. Kennedy, February 26, 1962.
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        #4
        Re: How long does it take to ....

        If this drive is connected via USB it will take a very long time. Speed is throttled by USB bus. It will go much faster if the drive is connected via sata or IDE. External USB drives contain a perfectly normal sata or IDE drive inside the box. If you disassemble the drive housing, you can easily remove the drive and connect it directly to a sata or IDE cable in your computer and the operations will go a lot faster. Some of these drive housings are difficult to disassemble. Some are easy. I have recovered the data from several failed external USB drives this way. The drives were OK. It was the external mounting hardware that failed.
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          #5
          [RESOLVED]Re: How long does it take to ....

          Well, I have two answers.
          1) It must take MORE than 10 hours for EXT4 to format a USB 250GB HD...
          2) It must take MORE than 5 hours for EXT3 to format the same disk.

          However, NTFS formats it in under 1 minute. But, New Technology File System isn't that new and doesn't format the drive when it installs itself.

          But, in checking the literature, I found that a 2T external USB drive using
          sudo mkfs.ext4 -cc -m0 -LBACKUP /dev/sdb1
          was only 20% finished AFTER 40 HOURS!!!!! That is probably because the "-cc" option both reads and writes each block to test it.

          So, I am going to try again to format the 250GB external USB HD with EXT4 and be even MORE patient. It least I know it will take more than 10 hours.


          PS: Thanks, Detonate, for the suggestion. Unfortunately, the case has no removal options aside from prying it apart, which I don't want to do.
          "A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
          – John F. Kennedy, February 26, 1962.
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            #6
            Re: How long does it take to ....

            Originally posted by GreyGeek
            PS: Thanks, Detonate, for the suggestion. Unfortunately, the case has no removal options aside from prying it apart, which I don't want to do.
            Yes, some of them can only be opened destructively. However, if the drive should fail, keep in mind that you can salvage the actual hard drive and in most cases save your data on the drive.
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              #7
              Re: How long does it take to ....

              Well, the data that was on the drive was already recovered using dd and photo_rec, so data loss won't be a problem. The real purpose of formatting to drive was to see if I could, that is, to see if the drive experienced a mechanical or electrical problem which corrupted it in the first place and has rendered it a piece of junk. That I can format it with ntfs is no help because the FS doesn't test the sectors when it lays down the Meta File Table. I'm thinking that IF I can format it successfully with EXT4 the drive is still useable, if I can't it's going into the trash can.
              "A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
              – John F. Kennedy, February 26, 1962.
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                #8
                Re: How long does it take to ....


                Send it to me.
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                  #9
                  Re: How long does it take to ....

                  IF it fails my latest EXT4 test I will.
                  "A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
                  – John F. Kennedy, February 26, 1962.
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                    #10
                    Re: How long does it take to ....

                    These USB HDs (I have a 500Gb SeaGate 'Go' (or what ever it's called)), and those drives come with a Windows data encryption program built onto the controller, and your user likely enabled it. Thus, all the files on the drive were encrypted. That would have complicated things on your end.
                    Windows no longer obstructs my view.
                    Using Kubuntu Linux since March 23, 2007.
                    "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data." - Sherlock Holmes​
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