partitioning hard drive - error

I just bought a new Western Digital 750GB laptop drive for my 13" macbook pro. I have a transcend external enclosure, to hook it up as an external via usb, and I had planned on using CCC to clone my existing 250gb to the new drive, and then swapping them.

However, at first plugging the drive in, my MBP didn't see it at all. The lights came on, and the drive sounded like it started... but it didn't appear in disk utility. I unscrewed it from the enclosure, and then re-attached everything, and the 2nd time around, this time my MBP saw the drive. So it's possible (I guess) that something wasn't fully connected in the enclosure.

My first action was to open disk utility and try to partition the drive. But when I chose the "1 partition" route, I got an error when it attempted to unmount the drive, and wouldn't let me continue. So I then opted to "erase" the drive, and it did that no problem. Then I did a "verify" on the disk, and it again reported no problem. So just for giggles, I then attempted to "partition" the drive again, and voila, same error.

So I just want to make sure there is nothing wrong with the drive. Is this normal behavior, or is the error I get when trying to partition the drive a signal that something really is wrong? I did a test clone using CCC, and it looks like it worked beautifully. But now I'm nervous that if I swap it into my MBP, if something is wrong, I'll find out a few months down the road, and it will be harder to return to NewEgg than if I just returned it right now.

Anyone? Is this normal, or is there something wrong with my WD drive?