Initial backup using reg copy of SD! taking 12+ hrs to erase an empty dest drive??

[phat32]

I've just recently purchased a copy of SD! and I'm trying to get my first full backup completed. I'm using a WD 160GB USB 2.0 drive but frankly I'm concerned somethings wrong. I've formatted the drive as HFS and yesterday I started the full backup for the first time but as of today it has been running for 12+ hours just on the "Erasing files on WD160" task. The drive was already empty when I started the backup so there shouldn't have been anything to erase. Anyone have a clue as to what the hold up was? I finally stopped it despite warnings that the WD160 would be left in an unknown state.

I've restarted the backup but this time opted for the smart update option to avoid the need for erasing all files on the destination drive. Even now it's been running for an hour preparing the Macintosh HD. I'm running version 2.5 (v84) of SD!, OS X 10.4 on an MBP. I'd appreciate any feedback folks can offer about what's going on, even if it's just to say this normal for the first backup. Thanks.