Ian, I am not sure that format time of approximately 1GB per minute is out of line. However, it would be interesting to see what speeds other users have seen with different interfaces. For example, SCSI, ATA66, etc. How about it folks? I might note that the CPU speed and amount of RAM could affect format times. Years ago I wrote a formatting program and found that building up the sector information did use up more CPU time than I had anticipated. Of course computers are very much faster today than they were then, so perhaps hardware delays make the CPU delay seem insignificant. Peter ----------------------------------------------- The NoSpin Group [log in to unmask] -----Original Message----- A used but fairly new 40Gb Western Digital drive is taking around 30-35 secs to format EACH PERCENT, in other words, almost 55 minutes to format the whole drive. Ian Porter PCBUILD maintains hundreds of useful files for download visit our download web page at: http://freepctech.com/downloads.shtml