how long should it take to write zeros to disk??
 

hello
i've got a little stuck with the whole 'using disk utility to erase the drive' thing...(i know its probably really simple so please forgive me if i'm being somewhat dense about this!) as its telling me its going to take 145 hours to write the zeros to disk and i kind of think thats not quite right...maybe?! (it was 75 hours but i decided to try to start over - ie. i selected the skip button and now its even worse...oh dear)
i have a new WD external hard drive connected by usb (400 gb) if thats of any help and it didn't have anything on it but was grayed out in the destination box....hence the erase bit.
any help much appreciated!

You seem to have posted this twice.

yes i did notice....and was embarrassed - it wasn't intentional. in fact i don't actually know how it happened and i did try to see if i could remove it but obviously without success....
however what i really need help with please is what to do about the disk - do i let it write zeros for a 145 hours or stop it??
thanks

Zeroing the drive is always a good idea before you use it.

yes i realize that from what i've read on here and in your users guide but should it really take nearly a week to do that?! is that normal? also i just wondered why its taking twice as long this time? (after i tried to skip it when 75 hours seemed excessive!!)
thanks!

If your USB drive is running slowly, it could...

FWIW, I recently zeroed out a new 160 GB USB Maxtor One Touch 4 Mini in my 2.2 ghz Macbook with 1 gb ram. It took less than 2 hours.

Something sounds wrong. Are you using the USB cable that came with the drive. If for some reason your getting USB 1.1 transfer rates, that's gonna kill your speed.