How to reformat external HDD?

Hi,
I'm using a 1TB Hitachi external HDD. It has been working fine for a long time, but somehow it doesn't mount anymore. I opened Disk Utility and tried to repair it, but that didn't work. It showed me this message:
Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.
How do I back up the files on a disk I can't open and how do I reformat it?
Regards,
Chris Wijland

One of the misconceptions that circulate on ASC is the idea that a journaled HFS volume can be corrupted by a forced unmount, as for example in a system crash or a power failure. That idea is false.
With filesystem journaling, when the volume is remounted after a forced unmount, the directory is automatically repaired, and files are restored to their previous state, using redundant information (the journal) stored on the drive. This is very well established technology, and for all practical purposes, it always works—unless the journal itself is corrupt due to a hardware failure in the drive or elsewhere in the data path. So if the directory of a journaled volume is found to be corrupt, the storage device hosting the volume has thrown at least one unrecoverable hardware error.
People who don't understand journaling will tell you to repair the corrupt volume with Disk Utility (if possible), or with Disk Warrior otherwise, and then go on using the drive as if everything is fine. That might have been good advice years ago, before the introduction of HFS journaling, when it was common for volumes to be corrupted as the result of forced unmounting. Today, because forced unmounts no longer cause that kind of corruption, it's relatively rare—or should be—and when it does happen, the implications are different.
My opinion is that when a drive throws such a severe error that a volume directory not only can't be restored by journal replay, but also can't be repaired by Disk Utility, that drive should no longer be trusted with data. It should be taken to a recycling center.
Deric Horn, the head of filesystem engineering at Apple, gave a presentation at WWDC 2012 in which he stated, with regard to journaled HFS (starting at offset 3:18 in the recording):
The journal means that you can pull power at any time, and your filesystem is still intact. There shouldn't be any data corruption or any volume corruption on that disk.
You can hear the presentation by registering for a free developer account with Apple and going to this page. (Eventually the link will break; if that's already happened, you'll just have to take my word for it.) Look for "What's New In The Filesystem" near the bottom.
If a poster on this site knows more about HFS than the Apple software engineer in charge of it, then the latter should be fired, and the former should get his job. Until that happens, I suggest you believe what Horn says.

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