input/output error on new drive

Back with another puzzle, this time concerning a new portable drive.
Western Digital (WDME3200TN) Passport Essential Portable hard drive. USB2.0
connection. My computer is a g4 imac, sys 10.4.11

I connect the drive, and eventually I get a message that the computer sees no
formatted drive, and that I should format it. I attempt to use disk utilities
to do this, and no matter what efforts I employ, I get failure messages and a
input/output error message.

Disk utilities can see the drive and identifies it with all its particulars,
but no volume information and no ability to format, partition, verify or
repair. The only successful action is "dismount".

I just got this unit in the mail today. I let it warm up to room temperature
before hooking it up. No damage of any kind to any of the packaging. I will
call the number for Western Digital for more info, but I figured my best move
is to get some understandable info here, first.

Searches on the web were not too useful, only telling me that some folks had
great results with this drive and others who had bad drives. The WD support
website had a detailed formatting procedure, using disk utillity. I tried it
and just got the i/o error message.

Am I doing somethng wrong? Is the drive hinky? Is there some other way to
attempt mounting or formatting this drive?

Thanks for your time.

tom koehler
--
I will find a way or make one.