External hard drive won't erase and now is not recognized

My 1 TB WD external hard drive was partitioned into 2 partitions. The top partition was for Time Machine, the bottom for my personal files. Those personal files are not on my regular hard drive so I decided I needed to get another external hard drive to back them up. I bought a 2 TB WB and set up Time Machine with that drive to back up my computers hard drive as well as my 1 TB external hard drive. Through my online research I discovered I couldn't make the 1 TB into one partion without deleting my personal files, so I figured since it was backed up on the 2 TB it would be okay. Just to be safe I backed it up onto a 500 GB Seagate as well (this drive crashed a while ago and then randomly started working again, so not too trustworthy - if anyone knows how I can make it trustworthy again, that would be fantastic). Then I partioned the 1 TB into 1 partition. Success. I went to erase it and selected Zero Out Data. This failed "Volume Erase failed with the error: Disk object invalid or inable to serialize." And then my hard drive disappeared. I've been able to open it in Disk Utility and partion it again into 1 partition, but each time I try to erase it, it always fails. Is something wrong with my drive? Is this external hard drive truthworthy to hold important files without crashing again?
Here's a screenshot of what happens when it fails. Yay.
After the Zeroing out doesn't work, this box pops up. And then my drive disappears from the desktop.
At one point the partition failed, but it seems to have gotten over that. Although each time I try to erase and it fails, I have to rename and repartition my 1 TB external hard drive so it shows up on the desktop again.

I came back from uni and it looks like the writing zero's was effective. There were no "failure" boxes. And here's the final reading for the partition and then the whole drive. Does anyone know why it says 12 folders and 66 files (more filed than when it started writing)? Does this mean it's not zero-ed out? Can I use this external hard drive?

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External Hard Drive won't erase. What can i do?

Hey everyone,
The external hard drive i used as a Time Machine for my macbook stopped being recognised but it shows up on Disk Utility. I've already tried to erase it to reformat it but I keep getting an error saying that the disk couldn't be unmounted.
Does anyone know what i can do to make it work again?
Thanks!
Extra:
I've already tried repairing it but Disk Utility simply said it can't repair the disk.

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Message was edited by: stewiesno1

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External hard drive becomes "read only" and won't let Time Machine back up

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There is a version of 10.6.6 loaded on it also.
The back up will fail every few days. When I do some checking, the back up drive is "read only" but I am not able to switch it to read/write. I cannot repair it with Disk Utility as the repair buttons are grayed out.
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System log says:
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It's read only because:
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B: I right click and "Get Info" and if I click on the lock icon, nothing happens.
C: The disk is not listed in the Time Machine backups.
I will try to take better notes the next time it happens and give you the exact messages.
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External Hard Drive Won't Mount- Need to recover files

Hello Everyone,
I am hoping that one of you fine mac experts may be able to assist ~
Problem: External Seagate FreeAgent Desktop USB external hard drive
won't mount on desktop=ie: no access to my important files.. Please Help!
Details:
External seagate freeagent 500 GB Desktop USB HD ( only 2 months old)
(using for document / file backup-not as a startup disc)
on my Mac G3 350 MZ Blue & White Tower /768 ram/ running OSX 10.1.5 & OS9.2~
~
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seagate -not much help . Seagate said to try the HD on another mac-which I did-
a G5 tower- same problem.
~
The External hard drive will show up in disk utility, but is grayed out.
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message 1: "a disk attempting to mount as unknown has failed verification or has failed to
mount.please use disk utility to check the disk"
~
message 2- when unplugging and repluggin the usb in-and upon
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~
( I really need access to these files- and do not want to re-initialize the HD!!)
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Checking Extents Overflow file.
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Invalid key length ( <<<IN RED )
Repair completed. "
~~
Though it said the repair was completed, the "invalid key length" issue
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~~~~~
If there is a mac genius out there that can help?- it would be greatly
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~~~
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Will zapping the PRAM be of any use in getting the external to mount on the desktop?
Your external Hard drive is already recognized. But it cannot be mounted on the desktop due to its directory damage. You can certainly Zap the PRAM, and it will not hurt anything, but I am skeptical that it will change the situation.
Do you think the Disk Warrior 4.0 cd will even work on my G3 350MHZ running Mac OS 10.1.5?
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Is there a good chance that the ext HD will still have my files on it- or do you think from what I've described that they are gone ?
From what you have described, your files are very likely to still be there. Sometimes in a situation like this, a handful of files cannot be recovered.
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External hard drive won't unmount for disk utility.

Im not sure if this is the right topic area but I have a white macbook and my external hard drive won't unmount. I want to erase it via disk utility but it keeps telling me other programs are using it.

Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

External hard drive won't erase and now is not recognized

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