My HD needs to be reformatted according to Disk Utility, but even when I use an external device for startup, Disk Utility cannot reformat the HD

I have a Macbook with a 500 GB Hard Drive. A routine check on Disk Utility told me the disk needed to be reformatted. I restarted from an external USB drive, but when I try to use Disk Utility to repair the HD or to reformat it, Disk Utility is unable to do anything with the HD (cannot repair, cannot erase,cannot reformat the HD).  Is there a utility App that can help me with this, or is the HD unrecoverable?

Hi
Thanks very much for your reply. We have been starting up from a backup (USB) drive and use the disk utility that is on the backup drive so the internal (problem) HD is not being used for anything (except for wanting to repair it). Still Disk Utility cannot reformat or repair the drive. I have also run Onyx but it tells me everything is OK on the drive.
But I have made a little progress. Using my old install disk for Snow Leopard (10.6.3) I have managed to do a fresh install of the system on the internal HD. Unfortunately, I also asked the install disk to transfer/migrate the settings and documents from the backup drive back onto my internal HD. The install appeared to work, but then it got hung up on copying the documents from my backup drive to the HD. After letting it sit for 2 days without going anywhere, I stopped the install process. I am going to try again, just using my Snow Leopard  CD to install Snow Leopard, and nothing else. If that works, I will then get on to the problem of copying the rest of the settings and documents from my backup.
But since the Mac works OK off the USB  backup, and will also run off the install CD, I am guessing the problem is with the HD and the only solution might be to replace it if I can't repair it. But the macbook is several years old, and I am not sure it is worth buying a new HD for it.

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