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General discussion

How long does it take to format?

by grahamb Jun 8, 2005 12:31AM PDT

Hello all...
I got a 250gb maxtor internal drive that I put in a usb 2.0 external enclosure. I set the jumper to Master, per the instructions that came with the enclosure. I plan on only using it for file storage.

I was setting it up last night and the Computer recognized a new USB drive and I installed the drivers for it (the drivers that came with the enclosure).

It did not show up in My Computer, which was predicted in the instructions.

Then I installed the software that came with the HD. It found the HD and said that it was brand new and needed to be formatted. That was around 10pm last night. Around 9am this morning when I left for work it was still spinning. The progress bar hadn't moved...

Is it possible that it will take this long?

Vital Stats:
P3 700 mhz computer
Windows 98SE

Thanks in advance.

Discussion is locked

4 Posts
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Days. Here's why.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Jun 8, 2005 1:02AM PDT

My USB 2.0 connected 160GB drive formatted in less than one hour. But since you have a P3, 99.99% of P3s will have USB 1.1. Let me do a guess on time here.

I'll state that 160GB completed in 1 hour on my p3-600 USB 2.0 connected drive.

If that was true and you connected via USB 1.1 (likely!), then a straightforward bit of math shows...

USB 2.0 speed / USB 1.1 speed times 250 / 160 = hours

Or...

480 / 11 times 1.56 = 68.18 hours.

You'll have to give it about 3 days.

Bob

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thanks...
by grahamb Jun 8, 2005 1:11AM PDT

I do have a USB 2.0 card in the Computer....
which makes it sound like something is not working properly.

thanks!

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Follow up...Which Drivers?
by grahamb Jun 8, 2005 1:13AM PDT

Should I have installed the drivers from the hard drive, or the drivers from the USB 2.0 External Enclosure?

thanks!

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Windows 98se will have "issues."
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Jun 8, 2005 1:24AM PDT

1. The file system will only support 127GB (or 137GB) in total on that drive. I don't want to duplicate all that is known about this, so catch up about this at http://www.48bitlba.com

2. http://www.usbman.com notes the usual USB 2.0 issues. But in a laptop it gets worse. Very few can install Windows properly. They'll forget some motherboard or other driver. Support is waning for this old OS, but by this time you should be an old hand at corraling the motherboard drivers, reading USBMAN and more. This OS hasn't been offered for 5 years so it's not seen as much and ... people seem to be forgetting how it works.

Bob

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