Initial Backup Won't Work

Hello,
I recently got a new mac with Leopard, and I've been trying to start up Time Machine. I have a 500GB external hard drive connected by firewire, and I'm trying to backup about 70GB of data onto a 385GB partition.
When I have Time Machine do the initial backup, it gets about a megabyte backed up before it pretty much stops. The progress bar still says that it's backing up, but it doesn't progress anymore. I've tried leaving it to backup overnight, and when I checked in the morning, the progress was still at 1 MB. In addition, if I try to stop the backup by clicking the X, it doesn't stop until I go to Disk Utility and repartition the disk, in which an error message pops up (because it can't find the hard drive).
Thanks

If you have an Intel Mac then your backup drive must be partitioned using GUID and formatted OS X Extended (Journaled.) Do the following:
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger or Leopard.)
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Set the number of partitions from the drop down menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
7. Repeat Steps 4-6 for each partition you've created.
Once completed reselect the desired backup volume in TM preferences.

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