Secure Disk Erase failed.....Lion Bug?

Trying to secure delete a 100Gb USB exeternal drive im selling using Disk Utility. I want to do 7 passes but it keeps coming with the same error at the end of the 1st pass. This error is after trying 1 pass just now.

The drive has been perfectly fine until now so im wondering whether this is some Lion glitch as there is no error mentioned after :

Is there some way of fixing this?

Ive done the repair drive option but it didnt do anything.
A normal non secure erase works but secure.

Help appreciated....

 

Update

I found no error logs.

1) I have now tried to secure erase this drive on two computers. One was a MacBook Pro with Lion and my MacBook Air 13 Ultimate with Lion. Both times i have got the SAME ERROR message at the end.

2) I just tried another drive, which i am also selling - same model - with my mba and i got the same problem after running 1 zero pass secure delete.

3) Both drives have worked perfectly FOR YEARS up to now. And continue to work after this error'd secure delete process.

SO i am going to assume that there is a BUG in Lion secure delete that is not completing the process properly. That there is no clear error message showing adds to this theory.

Anyone have any ideas?

I now need to try secure erasing these drives using Snow Leopard but i dont know if i can be bothered.....

-- Question.
It is taking 45-60 mins to secure delete these drives before the error message comes up at the end. Is it 'safe' to assume it HAS zero'd out the drives - otherwise what is it doing for 45 mins?

-- Request.
Can someone who has a spare drive and a machine with Lion installed try to secure delete 1 pass and see what happens?

Thanks.

 

Anyone care to secure delete a drive to confirm its a possible lion bug?

 

Thanks for replying.

Then it does not make sense. I have tried 2 drives on 2 machines, both with lion, and i get the same error........

I preformed a data recovery scan on 1 of the drives using 2 different applications and neither could recover any data so it looks like it is zero-ing.

Does any body have any ideas about this issue?

 

Found this

http://aricsblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/disk-utility-erase-failed-on-mac-os-x.html

But it hasnt solved it for me....