reformat hard drive to EXT 4

[Gnusboy]

Hello

After a fatal crash of Ubuntu, loss of data and extreme fatigue caused by reading dozens of forums, I decided to completely reformat my 640 GB HDD.
I'm using Gparted 0.5.0 and it says the format to EXT 4 as "1 operation pending."
It seems to be taking a very long time to complete. Is this proper?
I do not recall if previous formats on various machines required lengthy formating time.
Can anyone enlighten me on how long a format will take?

640 BG WD Drive
AMD 4X Phenom
4 GB Ram

Thanks

[Jimmyfj]

If you install Ubuntu 9.10 you'll get the EXT4 file system automatically during installation - To make sure you can choose to partition the drive manually.

[Gnusboy]

It appears that I never click apply operations to the initial format process. It is progressing now.
But, I plan to install Ubuntu 9.10. Should I stop the format and let 9.10 do it instaed?

URGENT

The system froze at the beginning of the EXT 4 format.
Should I reboot and go again with 9.10?
What to do??