The integrity check (an ext2 fsck) often *does* sound like it's doing nothing. There *is* head movement, but it's not backwards and forwards, it's a linear scan (of the inodes, I think).

Check the time/date on the unit to see if it looks sensible before you do a sync - there's a bug I've noticed that it appears to wander through the world's timezones, giving a +/- 1 day-ish time (this'll be fixed in the next release!). If this is not set, you're very much more likely to make the fsck kick in - after you set it you'll get another fsck on the next sync, but then it should only do it every 20-30 syncs.

Hugo