Unable to format partition

[zebrah12]

I recently used shred to fill my entire hard drive with random data. Afterwards I'm trying to install Ubuntu from a live USB.

However, I'm unable to create a large partition on my hard drive. I can create a /boot partition of 6 GB, but I cannot allocate the remaining (465.76 GB) to the /home partition. Please note that previously about 250 GB of my hard drive was formatted as NTFS, as I had Windows installed at some point.

I have pasted the error GParted is throwing below:


GParted 0.30.0 --enable-libparted-dmraid --enable-online-resize

Libparted 3.2


Create Primary Partition #1 (ext4, 465.76 GiB) on /dev/sda 00:00:21 ( ERROR )





create empty partition 00:00:00 ( SUCCESS )





path: /dev/sda1 (partition)
start: 2048
end: 976773119
size: 976771072 (465.76 GiB)







clear old file system signatures in /dev/sda1 00:00:00 ( SUCCESS )





write 512.00 KiB of zeros at byte offset 0 00:00:00 ( SUCCESS )




write 4.00 KiB of zeros at byte offset 67108864 00:00:00 ( SUCCESS )




write 4.00 KiB of zeros at byte offset 274877906944 00:00:00 ( SUCCESS )




write 512.00 KiB of zeros at byte offset 500106264576 00:00:00 ( SUCCESS )




write 4.00 KiB of zeros at byte offset 500106723328 00:00:00 ( SUCCESS )




write 8.00 KiB of zeros at byte offset 500106780672 00:00:00 ( SUCCESS )




flush operating system cache of /dev/sda 00:00:00 ( SUCCESS )







set partition type on /dev/sda1 00:00:00 ( SUCCESS )





new partition type: ext4







create new ext4 file system 00:00:21 ( ERROR )





mkfs.ext4 -F -O ^64bit -L '' '/dev/sda1' 00:00:21 ( ERROR )





64-bit filesystem support is not enabled. The larger fields afforded by this feature enable full-strength checksumming. Pass -O 64bit to rectify.
Creating filesystem with 122096384 4k blocks and 30531584 inodes
Filesystem UUID: 96c9472a-1867-4984-8e18-7f5b43c2ee33
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968,
102400000

Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (262144 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: 10/3727




mke2fs 1.44.1 (24-Mar-2018)

Warning, had trouble writing out superblocks.












========================================

[TheFu]

I would create a new GPT partition table, then create any partitions, sized as you'd like, then choose the file system for each to be formatted.
Then I'd click "Apply"

If that doesn't work, I'd run some SMART tests on the disk to see if any bad sectors need to be relocated. Smartctl should force that. If more than 10 sectors are relocated, I'd use DBAN to wipe the disk twice and either give it away or drill 6 1/2inch holes through it.

[zebrah12]

I ran SMART tests using smartclt and they did not report any error, but I'm still getting the same error when trying to install Ubuntu. Is there another utility I could try? Perhaps after filling the entire hard drive with zeros some sectors got misaligned. Could filling the drive with random data potentially fix this?

SMART test results:



=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family: Western Digital Blue Mobile
Device Model: WDC WD5000LPVX-75V0TT0
Serial Number: WX21E54HMV21
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 605128008
Firmware Version: 01.01A01
User Capacity: 500,107,862,016 bytes [500 GB]
Sector Sizes: 512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate: 5400 rpm
Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is: ACS-2 (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is: SATA 3.0, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is: Tue Oct 8 10:46:49 2019 UTC
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x00) Offline data collection activity
was never started.
Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed
without error or no self-test has ever
been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection: ( 8220) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities: (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
Suspend Offline collection upon new
command.
Offline surface scan supported.
Self-test supported.
Conveyance Self-test supported.
Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
power-saving mode.
Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 95) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time: ( 5) minutes.
SCT capabilities: (0x7035) SCT Status supported.
SCT Feature Control supported.
SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x002f 200 200 051 Pre-fail Always - 5227
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 150 145 021 Pre-fail Always - 1466
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 095 095 000 Old_age Always - 5208
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 200 200 140 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x002e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 081 081 000 Old_age Always - 14528
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 095 095 000 Old_age Always - 5160
191 G-Sense_Error_Rate 0x0032 001 001 000 Old_age Always - 280
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 87
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 149 149 000 Old_age Always - 153542
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 106 082 000 Old_age Always - 37
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 34
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate 0x0008 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 0
240 Head_Flying_Hours 0x0032 081 081 000 Old_age Always - 14034
241 Total_LBAs_Written 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 31479294197
242 Total_LBAs_Read 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 27567278464
254 Free_Fall_Sensor 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error
# 1 Extended offline Aborted by host 90% 14504 -
# 2 Short offline Completed without error 00% 0 -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
SPAN MIN_LBA MAX_LBA CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
1 0 0 Not_testing
2 0 0 Not_testing
3 0 0 Not_testing
4 0 0 Not_testing
5 0 0 Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

[TheFu]

197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 34
The drive is failing. Backup everything ASAP and move to new storage. You have already lost some data.