How long to format/partition 20GB with ext3?

[socbutter]

I 've been following the tutorial the Perfect Desktop OpenSUSE 10.3 with DVD CD(gnome and kde) and the formatting/partition takes a long time. Tried overnight (DVD), 3 hours (CD/Gnome), 2hours (CD/kde).

I would like to get to the point where I'm have the complex problems you guys are having rather than this silly install problem.

My pc is fairly modern Intel Core 2 Duo, Asrock MOBO and ATI AGP Video Card x800, 2 Gigs of ram. My HD is 250 Gig WD.

[falko]

Normally the partitioning shouldn't take more than a few minutes... Maybe your HDD isn't fully supported by OpenSUSE...
You could try to preformat the HDD with GParted (see http://www.howtoforge.com/partitioning_with_gparted ) and then install OpenSUSE on these partitions.

[socbutter]

Used Gparted (force VESA) to format 2 partitions ( 1 ext3 and the other windows partition) at the end of the disk. Had to do each individually. So I inserted the OpenSUSE DVD and then the Gnome CD ( I thought the DVD had everything?) Finally got to "Package Installation". Its currently stuck at "Remaining > 4:06:01" Sometimes it comes back with a connection error to some package(S)(.rpm) so Retry..... I am waiting.

I am going to reboot and try again:( :(

BTW I replaced the HD with a Maxtor 200 G and then tried to reinstalled (with no satisfaction) and finally ran Gparted.

=====================

Tried Seagate and Maxtor HD using Gparted to create the Partitions also to erase all partitions. Tried all config without any success.
So I installed Windows XP Home Edition with no problems. Will try again when I get rid of my wifes old Dell from 1990 with 1.2 GHz P 2 just to experiment.