hard drive bug

[CsY]

Hello
I must install a new hard drive (samsung 250Gb sata2 with  external usb2 
bay) and i cant partition/format this.
I create 3 partition, write it, but dont looking that. If i like to 
mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda the syslog contains these error messages:

Nov 19 22:46:29 localhost kernel: usb 4-4: reset high speed USB device 
using ehci_hcd and address 37
Nov 19 22:46:29 localhost kernel: usb 4-4: device descriptor read/64, 
error -71
Nov 19 22:46:29 localhost kernel: usb 4-4: device descriptor read/64, 
error -71
Nov 19 22:46:29 localhost kernel: usb 4-4: reset high speed USB device 
using ehci_hcd and address 37
Nov 19 22:46:29 localhost kernel: usb 4-4: device descriptor read/64, 
error -71
Nov 19 22:46:29 localhost kernel: usb 4-4: device descriptor read/64, 
error -71
Nov 19 22:46:30 localhost kernel: scsi: Device offlined - not ready 
after error recovery: host 15 channel 0 id 0 lun 0
Nov 19 22:46:30 localhost kernel: SCSI error : <15 0 0 0> return code = 
0x50000
Nov 19 22:46:30 localhost kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev sda, 
sector 6032688
Nov 19 22:46:30 localhost kernel: printk: 214 messages suppressed.
Nov 19 22:46:30 localhost kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sda, 
logical block 754086
Nov 19 22:46:30 localhost kernel: lost page write due to I/O error on sda
Nov 19 22:46:30 localhost kernel: scsi15 (0:0): rejecting I/O to offline 
device
Nov 19 22:46:30 localhost kernel: Buffer I/O error on device sda, 
logical block 754087

Do you have any idea?
(ubuntu 5.10, on ibm t40. Everything works fine, but i need extra storage)