recovering allocation units

I have a 20.4 GB HDD that I got from an auction. I have used fdisk to partition it into 3 partitions. When I try to format it, I get the message ‘trying to recover allocation units’. It then goes on forever trying to recover allocation units from 36,508, untill over 600,000. This usually takes about 6-7 hours by which time I get fed up and stop the process. I have tried partitioning different size drives and formatting them. I have also tried to set different drives as active. All to no avail.Is there a utility or a way that I can overcome this problem? Would a low level format help in any way?
The disk is less than 6 months old, but the manufacturer does not accept responsibility since it was purchased from an auction.