I cannot Format my SSD with Gparted

So I have an external SSD with multiple partitions.

I want to Format one of the partitions (to ntfs) with gparted. When plugging in the drive, gparted detects it and I can choose to format it. But when I want to apply the changes, it crashes. Once, gparted stopped working and I had to force quit, another time it said that the drive doesn't exist. The last time I tried I got this Error:

mkntfs -Q -v -F -L "" /dev/sdf7 00:00:07 ( ERROR )
Cluster size has been automatically set to 4096 bytes.
Creating NTFS volume structures.
Creating root directory (mft record 5)
Creating $MFT (mft record 0)
Creating $MFTMirr (mft record 1)
Creating $LogFile (mft record 2)
Creating $AttrDef (mft record 4)
Creating $Bitmap (mft record 6)
Creating $Boot (mft record 7)
Creating backup boot sector.
Creating $Volume (mft record 3)
Creating $BadClus (mft record 8)
Creating $Secure (mft record 9)
Creating $UpCase (mft record 0xa)
Creating $Extend (mft record 11)
Creating system file (mft record 0xc)
Creating system file (mft record 0xd)
Creating system file (mft record 0xe)
Creating system file (mft record 0xf)
Creating $Quota (mft record 24)
Creating $ObjId (mft record 25)
Creating $Reparse (mft record 26)
Syncing root directory index record.
Syncing $Bitmap.
Syncing $MFT.
Updating $MFTMirr.
Syncing device.
Failed to sync device /dev/sdf7: Input/output error
Syncing device. FAILEDFailed to fsync device /dev/sdf7: Input/output error
Warning: Could not close /dev/sdf7: Input/output error

Interestingly, the drive isn't listed in nemo's devices section and I can only mount 1 partition.

How can I resolve this error with gparted?

1 Answer

Error messages such as Failed to sync device /dev/sdf7: Input/output error often indicate an issue with the hardware. The issue can be as simple as a loose cable, or as serious as a failing hard drive.

To determine if the hard drive is failing you might use the graphical program gsmartcontrol to view the attributes of the drive. Often when I've had a hard drive begin to fail, the Reallocated Sector Count would rise above zero.

For an example of determining if a drive is failing see a tutorial I wrote on Identifying and Replacing a Failing RAID Drive