Mac OS X fails when trying to format external HDD

Question

I have an Iomega Prestige desktop hard drive (1 TB) which I purchased from Amazon. I connect it to my white Macbook (purchased late 2007, 2.14 GHz with 2 GB Ram), open Disk Utility. I click the single partition on the disk, choose "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" for the Volume Format and leave the name as-is. When I click "Erase", I get the following error after only a few seconds:

Volume Erase Failed with the error:
The underlying task reported failure on exit

If I try to create a new partition with the same filesystem, I get the following error:

Partition failed with the error:
File system formatter failed.

This is the second disk I've tried this with - I sent the first one back to Amazon thinking it was defective, and they sent me a replacement. Obviously, it's unlikely that I managed to procure two defective drives, so I'm thinking there may be something wrong with my machine.

Another note - I've tried doing the format with the disk connected to both USB 2.0 ports on my machine, as well as connected through a USB hub. The behavior is the same, regardless of how the drive is connected.

Solution 1

Just for the sake of having an answer here, this is what ended up fixing the problem:

• Connected the disk to a windows XP machine
• Deleted the existing FAT32 partition that the device shipped with using Disk Management under XP.
• Connected it to the Mac, partitioned and formatted without issue.

I won't make this the selected answer unless somebody upvotes it, and I'll make the question community wiki.

Solution 2

Was just about to toss my old iomega 500GB when I thought I'd try one last thing. I used Disk Utility to reformat the partition that wouldn't mound. I selected the "1 Partition" layout, then formatted it to MBR (Master Boot Record) and hit "Apply". To my surprise, it mounted! Then I formatted it again, this time under options I chose "GUID" and under format "Mac Journaled". It finally formatted successfully and is mounted!