[clug] fsck.ext3 errors output - partitioning a contributor?

[Daniel]

Hello All,
I repartitioned and reformatted a disk:
1-swap 128mb, 2-ext3 650mb, 3-ext3 650mb, 4-ext3 30plus gig
then tried to copy files and directories to partition 4 and found it
copied files, but would not create directories.

Did an fsck.ext3 /dev/hdb4 ... (with drive unmounted when fscking).
Found errors reported as below. 

Does this indicate the drive is 'on the way out' or might there be a
chance I contributed to the situation by incorrect partition sizes?
Should a partition be a base 2 size?

I have since repartitioned (128/512/512/>30g) and reformatted - then run
fsck.ext3 -pvf with what seemed like all good results.

Any help on the drive and my approach would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Daniel.

---- examples of output from original partitioning -----
Error reading block 7962628 (Attempt to read block from filesystem
resulted in short read) while reading inode and block bitmaps.  Ignore
error<y>? no

fsck.ext3: Can't read an block bitmap while retrying to read bitmaps for
 /dev/hdb4
me:/mnt# fsck.ext3 -fp /dev/hdb4
Error reading block 7864326 (Attempt to read block from filesystem
resulted in short read) while doing inode scan.

/dev/hdb4: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY.
        (i.e., without -a or -p options)
me:/mnt# fsck.ext3 /dev/hdb4
e2fsck 1.27 (8-Mar-2002)
/dev/hdb4 contains a file system with errors, check forced.
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Error reading block 7864326 (Attempt to read block from filesystem
resulted in short read) while doing inode scan.  Ignore error<y>? no

Error while scanning inodes (3939840): Can't read next inode
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