Cannot partition external drive

I have an external drive that I just cannot partition. It's blank, so i have used Disk Utility and diskutil to erase, verify,repair etc., but nothing works.

It gives me this sort of thing:

Error: -69845: File system verify or repair failedUnderlying error: 8: POSIX reports: Exec format error

Trying fsck on the external drive does nothing useful but returns a bunch of hex with some recognizable text:

fsck_hfs -y /dev/disk2returns a very amusing "got" and then 2 lines later "U"

fsck_hfs -y /dev/disk2s1text is "Non system disk Press any key to reboot"

I'm not sure where i can go from here.

I attempted to use GParted and received the error

The backup GPT table is corrupt, but the primary appears OK, so that will be used.

I then removed the GPT using GDisk and changed the partition table to MBR.

Then I had no issues creating multiple partitions under MBR, but any attempt to go back to GPT led to the message above re backup table and failure to create multiple partitions under GPT.

I have created a single HFS+ using GParted and will see how that travels.

FINAL UPDATE - I have declared it dead.