How to make disk utility erase usb disk fast

I put in my cheap 3.7GB Universal Serial Bus (USB) into my eMac and i open up disk utility. But when i get to the erase tab and name my drive, i click erase, i press okay to confirm that i want to erase it and then it is on the partitioning part of the erase and it is stuck in the same place and will stay there all day and not make any progress. Is there anyway to skip this so that i can skip this or an app that will erase my usb because i need it for school.
Thanks You Guys.
Andrew.

Should you face a situation where you need to erase a USB quickly, instead
of using Disk Utility, just drag all the content you do not want to the Trash,
and Empty it before you eject the USB flash drive or other device.
By dragging only the content to Trash, and Empty, you do not need to reformat.
This saves some time/trouble. Sometimes you may have to reformat one of
these, from my experiences with cheaper ones, by then they may have failed
already and don't know it yet.
Even though the older eMac has USB1.1, later has 2.0, even a Drag to Trash/
Empty may take a little time; but no where near the time it may take to attempt
to erase using Disk Utility.
A USB flash drive nor a SSD should ever be secure erased and some makers
say not to do it (where zeros overwrite content) as that isn't good.
If you are the only user of a flash USB drive or thumbdrive, then the fast way is
the best. In the case of a cheap and non-durable one, you could physically
destroy it when done; if it doesn't do that all by itself.
Hopefully the adventure has been worthwhile...

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Great tip, thanks for the post!

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HELP!
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Message was edited by: spel3o

Would you post a screen shot of so people can see what you are seeing? Make sure you cover any personal information using Preview. Post the screen shot in a Reply using the camera icon. Copy and paste doesn't work.
Screen shots

Disk Utility - Erase Free Space-what does it really do?

Hey Forum,
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Pls help me, I need you guys' help!
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Erase free space simply writes zeros over the space occupied by deleted files to prevent data recovery. That's all it does. It does not give you extra disk space.
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Killed Disk Utility Erase Free Space. Now 0 available

(I erroneously posted this earlier to the Safari forum; posting here again)
I ran Disk Utility "Erase free space" on my iMac G5 250GB boot drive (I had about 130GB free). It ran for about 50 minutes, and got to "creating temp file" and then seemed to hang (thermometer didn't move for 20 minutes). So I force killed it. It seems to have left that "temp file" that takes up all available space since Disk Utility now reports 0 bytes available (and MS Entourage says insufficient free space and exits). I ran Finder "Secure empty trash" to delete 57 files with no error. But Disk Utility still says 0 bytes available.
First Aid "Verify Disk" reports no problems. "Verify Permissions" reports no problems.
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Thanks,
Ken

Restart did it. Thanks very much.
Ken

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Jon
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Hello.
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Regards.

Many thanks. I test with the second DVD player and I got the same problem. When the install disk is inserted in the DVD player, it works perfectly but boot always stops with a kernel panic.
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Mon Apr 13 10:19:12 2009
panic(cpu 5 caller 0x001A7BED): Kernel trap at 0x67886373, type 14=page fault, registers:
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EAX: 0x00000000, EBX: 0x00000000, ECX: 0x00000000, EDX: 0x06fdf004
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0x5564f9d8 : 0x12b0e1 (0x4555b4 0x5564fa0c 0x133238 0x0)
0x5564fa28 : 0x1a7bed (0x45e568 0x67886373 0xe 0x45dd24)
0x5564fb08 : 0x19e517 (0x5564fb20 0x6ecf100 0x5564fbc8 0x67886373)
0x5564fb18 : 0x67886373 (0xe 0x48 0x10 0x10)
0x5564fbc8 : 0x67875540 (0x0 0x6ecf100 0x6fd8c00 0x1)
0x5564fc08 : 0x5550c139 (0x6fd8c00 0x1 0x0 0x13)
0x5564fc68 : 0x55505940 (0x6fd8c00 0x2507 0x5564fd2c 0x6fd8c00)
0x5564fc98 : 0x40c515 (0x6fd8c00 0x76796b8 0x76796b8 0x0)
0x5564fce8 : 0x437535 (0x6fd8c00 0x76796b8 0x76796b8 0x0)
0x5564fd48 : 0x18c8aa (0x6fd8c00 0x76796b8 0x0 0x0)
0x5564fdb8 : 0x12d165 (0x73f8578 0x73f8390 0x5564fdf8 0x11ee04)
0x5564fdf8 : 0x126247 (0x73f8500 0x6c9c420 0x17893c0 0x0)
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com.apple.NVDAResman(5.1.6)@0x67872000->0x67a9efff
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport(1.5)@0x5571f000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.4)@0x55560000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(1.5)@0x554fd000
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dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.4)@0x55560000
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9A581
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Darwin Kernel Version 9.0.0: Tue Oct 9 21:35:55 PDT 2007; root:xnu-1228~1/RELEASE_I386
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Memory Module: DIMM Riser B/DIMM 2, 1 GB, DDR2 FB-DIMM, 800 MHz
Memory Module: DIMM Riser A/DIMM 1, 1 GB, DDR2 FB-DIMM, 800 MHz
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You could try and see if the boot installer disc's version of Disk Utility
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Hi all
I have been having some problems trying to transfer movies from computer to my iPod. Someone just suggested that I use Disk Utility to verify disk permissions, as well as the disk. I was able to verify disk permissions and repair them. Noticed the some had something to do with iTunes, so that might fix my problem with transferring movies to my iPod. I then tried to verify the disk, but I got the following error "Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit." Also this program shows that the following "Checking volume bitmap.
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Volume needs repair"
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Thanks
Michael

The startup drive can only be repaired from another drive.
You have to boot from the install disk.
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This will take you to the installation software, but you do not want to install.
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Select the start up drive, then go to the First Aid pane where you can click on Repair Disk.
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Hi,
Fed up with seeing the spinning beach ball I decided to reformat my MacBook Pro...
After backing up everything on an external hard drive I put in the OSX install DVD, restarted the machine and held down 'C'.
I followed the install prcedure, clicking next a few times etc...
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Did you partition the drive?
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger or Leopard.)
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
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How to make disk utility erase usb disk fast

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