Slackware install hangs on formatting drive
 

Just started a Slackware 10.2 install. I'm pretty sure that my hard drive is bad - so I went to format the drive and check for bad sectors. It's been stuck on the same "formatting" screen for almost 12 hours - should I give up hope? Is there a way to tell if the format is still working?

The machine is still alive - I can switch to another terminal session with CTRL+ALT+F2 - I just don't know what to do from there... How can I tell if the format is still working? At what point should I just hit RESET and assume that the drive is dead?

thanks in advance
dbc

is this during the normal install of slackware? if so .. try switching to the 4th terminal ((ctrl)+alt+f4) this is usually where information from the formatting is written too.

perhaps that will give you more of an idea whats happening

awesome. I think I only tried the 2nd and 3rd terminals. currently on 199XXXXX out of 281XXXXX...

thanks!