Unable to write to last block of device - Help!

I found a different solution.

Using Disc Utility, try to make a 'New Image' with the bad drive selected. It makes a disk image (.dmg) the same size as the drive, so you need a larger place to store the .dmg. This was great for my 64GB Card that had the last block error. I don't know how it would work for a 3TB drive.

I had already tried erasing the data, so I can't say if it is possible to preserve the original files.

I can however report that after making a blank image of the card that kept giving this error, I was able to attach and use the empty .dmg as the restore source in the restore step. I had formatted and renamed the virtual drive, and it restored without any error.

After restoring the clone image to the physical drive I could then use the card with no errors. I could rename, erase, change format, and it handles files normally.

THank you so much. We had the same problem with an older 500GB external drive. Luckily there was still a very old mac computer which had a 400 firewire drive that we could use to partition the drive. Now it works fine off the usb and we will get a 400 to 800 adapter so it can be used on a new macbook pro.

for others who have this problem;

I'd like to report how this went for me; same "can't write to last block..." issue.

I'm using Mac OS 10.8.5

reverse time line;

10/13/13, Wow, time machine is working at 9am! it's about 40% done, 62gig of 133 gig, about an hour more to finish (first time it takes a long time, then much faster). This is on the OLD 1TB HD that wasn't working yesterday!! very strange! didn't need to order that 1 TB drive for $70.31. oh well. (I had restarted the Mac several times AFTER trying MOST everything I can that's mentioned in this thread, (I don't have another Mac) and it still had not worked, but for some reason overnight and being on this morning with me NOT trying to fix it: it fixed itSELF)

10/12/13 My mac backup Time Machine not working for months.

10/12/13 I tried reformatting the one terabyte hard drive I had partitioned for PC and Mac but not currently using since I upgraded to 3TB drives. At first it seemed to work . However I cannot use it for Time Machine backup. I checked online and the only solution that is likely, was to buy diskWarrior for $100. instead I went to Amazon and bought a 1 terabyte blue (7,200RPM) Western Digital hard drive for $64.95. Plus tax. total of $70.31. Due Tuesday with Super Saver free two-day shipping. online order.

(I CAN still use the old 1TB drive on a PC however.)

Get Time Machine Error:

New error code when formatting "unable to write to the last block of the device"

Similar error:

"Disk Erase failed with the error: Unable to write to the last block of the device." Upgraded to OS X Yosemite 10.10 and can't get the WD MyBook 1230 Media drive to remount or format. Direct USB connection. Any ideas out there? Tried to reformat using Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled).

This happened to me today when trying to format a new SSD. I rebooted from the recovery partition (option button), disconnected all the other USB devices and it worked fine. Hope this may be of help to someone.