Question for all you Mac users... I have a PowerBook 17" with a 80GB 5400 RPM hard drive and OS X 10.3 (Panther). I am in the process of formatting the hard drive by zeroing the disk and doing an 8-way random write at the same time (most sercure format).

How long should this take? It's been doing it for 6 hours now and it's only 40% done... My concern is that the progress bar still says "Preparing to write random data to disk". It has said that for the last few hours... Do you think it's actually doing that but has just frozen the status? Or is my computer "stuck"? Apple support wont be open for another 9 hours! Any ideas/suggestions would be most apprecaited.

-Keith

I cant tell u exactly how long, but ive done it to a 40g 7200rpm drive and it took forever. just wait until tomorrow morning.

___________________
GIGANTIC CUNT

quote:

Originally posted by keithos27 Question for all you Mac users... I have a PowerBook 17" with a 80GB 5400 RPM hard drive and OS X 10.3 (Panther). I am in the process of formatting the hard drive by zeroing the disk and doing an 8-way random write at the same time (most sercure format). How long should this take? It's been doing it for 6 hours now and it's only 40% done... My concern is that the progress bar still says "Preparing to write random data to disk". It has said that for the last few hours... Do you think it's actually doing that but has just frozen the status? Or is my computer "stuck"? Apple support wont be open for another 9 hours! Any ideas/suggestions would be most apprecaited. -Keith

A 17", You lucky ass bastard. Now to you question, It's gonna take a while cause you went with the 8-way random write...that's always gonna take some time. It's also only 5400 rpm so that slows the process down a touch. Just wait til morning. Enjoy that beast!

Hi guys, thanks for the replies... It's been about 18 hours now and still says "Preparing to write random data to disk". The only "good" part is that the status bar is now 55% instead of 40% (the progress bar has somehow progressed even though it's still "preparing")?

-Keith

Well for anyone who actually cares... After 18 hours it was decided by one technician that the system was hanging... so I tried the same thing again. After 4 hours it was just back the "Preparing to write data to disk" mark, so I phoned Apple again. Turns out that on a 80GB hard drive, that process should take over 2 days!!! I don't have that kind of time (leaving for London tomorrow), so they recommended I just zero the data (should take 90-120 minutes) and proceed with an installation.

So fair warning for anyone who wants to zero their disk and do an 8-way rewrite... it'll take time (like days!).

Thanks for the replies guys.

-Keith

my question is WHY??

I would assume security reasons... but nowhere in your post you mentionned that you were selling your laptop or sending it for repairs.

if you did this only to format your drive and install everything back then a simple 30 minutes format would've done the job.

___________________
[/IMG]http://i54.tinypic.com/ngycqo.png[/IMG]

You guessed it... to protect some data (from ever being recovered).

quote:

Originally posted by keithos27 You guessed it... to protect some data (from ever being recovered).

my guess would be you needed to remove pr0n errrrr... i mean "data" off corporate laptop.

___________________
GIGANTIC CUNT

quote:

Originally posted by igottaknow my guess would be you needed to remove pr0n errrrr... i mean "data" off corporate laptop.

not exactly

quote:

Originally posted by keithos27 not exactly

kitty porn? gotcha

hm, this looks like a low-level secure-erase format and those take ages, especially on an 80gb 5400rpm disc.


if it was, in fact, a low-level format, then you might've corrupted the drive by terminating it short.


what the hell were you trying to hide anyway, CIA files??

___________________

quote:

Originally posted by caddyshack kitty porn? gotcha

worse illegally download Britney Spears mp3s

He must have gotten one of those automated warnings RIAA sends out on Kazza.

___________________
GIGANTIC CUNT