spotlight indexing hanging...can I shut down?

[kmacd]

I had a problem with spotlight not accessing certian files in my apps folder on my MacPro so I moved the harddrive into private and then back to public so that iw would index the computer. Now it's giving me a message that there are 214783648 hours remaining, which, if I'm doing the math right, is much longer than I plan on being alive. Will I cause a screw up if I shut down and start again or if I go back to spotlight preferences and start over? Grateful for any help.