Can I just close disk utility without risking data loss or drive problems?

I am using disk utility's restore to clone a hard drive to an external drive but it is taking forever (telling me 3 days)  and the cancel button won't work. Can I just close disk utility without risking data loss or drive problems? Force quit? Anyone have experience with this?
- George

I spoke with a tech advisor through applecare. Theoretically the source drive should not be damaged if you quit the disk utility application while cloning your drive. More obviously, the destination volume will be unreadable and require a re-format, but in general no major damage will occur. I have quit the disk utility and restrarted, the source drive works as expected, while the desitination shows, "unreadable"
Hope this helps anyone else with a similar question.
- George

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