New SSD USB drive: fdisk doesn't change partitions and mkfs doesn't change format

I have this portable SSD drive that I am trying to format for use with my Raspberry Pi 3: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N0V4JG2 In the past I have used this exact product, but the 128GB version, formatted as FAT32 on my OSX machine, and the drive worked with no issues on the Pi. I'm using it store the Bitcoin blockchain. Now that the blockchain is too big I'm trying to replace the drive with a 512GB drive, and I am having no luck getting this thing to work! I first tried the OSX FAT32 format, but that didn't work. So I'm trying to format it with the Pi itself. Starting off with fdisk /dev/sda as sudo su with USB drive unmounted: /dev/sda1 2 1000215215 1000215214 477G b W95 FAT32 Then I go through the process of [d]elete, [n]ew, [w]rite: /dev/sda1 2048 1000215215 1000213168 477G 83 Linux but even after a partprobe AND a reboot, fdisk -l still reports no change: /dev/sda1 2 1000215215 1000215214 477G b W95 FAT32 ... am I doing anything wrong up to this point? I also went forward with mfks.ext4 /dev/sda1 and still don't see anything changing (I can post those logs too...) And when I run fsck it is a TOTAL BLOODBATH -- which is even more confusing! How can a freshly formatted, brand new file-system have so many errors? Stuff like this (selected examples out of hundreds): Inode 138789 has a extra size (30700) which is invalid Inode 138825 has a bad extended attribute block 17929510. Inode 138877 has compression flag set on filesystem without compression support. Inode 139153 has a extra size (6956) which is invalid Finally, when I attach the drive my OSX machine I can format it and use it and it works FINE. So I think the drive is not defective.