Time Machine errors with external hard drive

This is my first post,
I've had my MBP for a little over 8 months and came up with an error when i went to go use bootcamp, saying that it could not partition my windows partition cause there is not enough space ( I have like at least 40+ gigs left after i partition it) and it tells me to backup and re-install. So what I wanted to do is do a time machine restore.
I take my 750GB Western Digital External Drive via Firewire and plug it in, time machine recognizes it and wants to format it as "Mac OS X Extended (Case-Sensitive, Journaled). So I do that and it all goes well.
After that's all done is basically when all my problems come. My external likes to lock up now and doesn't want to transfer all my files. I will load up the time machine restore and it sometimes will recognize my external and sometimes wont show up. My external will occasionally lock up during the time machine restore process. And all the time when it does actually complete and I restart the computer, it will have most of my things but all my pictures and stuff are missing off it and i go to look in my external and its still all in there but I'm left wondering why it didn't work.
As another resort i did a fresh re-install of mac os x and tried the migration assistant. It went going to restore it but then comes up with an error saying that it cant transfer the data and tells me to plug in my external when i have it already plugged in.
Since that didn't work I did another re-install of mac and decided to just start fresh, I still had all my music and other things that I had on my back up and tried putting them on my mac's hard drive and towards the middle and stuff it will come up with an error saying that it could not transfer files anymore and what not.
So I'm left scratching my head in wonder, because my external will show up on my desktop and I'm able to search files through there ok.
Could the possible problem be is that time machine partitioned it as journaled and case-sensative while my mac is partitioned as just journaled? Would that cause a conflict of having it locking up and giving me errors?
This is really the first time I've ever really been able to seriously play around with a mac and am totally lost and don't know what I can be doing wrong.
The external I have I just got last year not too long ago and it was working great before this.
I've been trying for the past 3 days straight trying to figure out this problem and have had no luck.
Please any help would really be appreciated greatly.
Thanks in advance!!!

Ok I tried what you said and I failed every time.
But here is an interesting thing that I just figured out. What I tried was making a folder on the desktop and I went into the time machine backup that I had I went and manually copied the applications, library, system, users, and developer folder thinking that it may work. Well it did for me with all the folders but not the Library folder. I think that it may be the culprit behind it cause it may be corrupt and thats why my stuff will keep locking up.
I will start copying all the other folders and they work just fine but then i would start to copy the Library folder and it would come up saying preparing to copy to "so and so" folder. well a bit into that it will stop and my external will spin down and stop working, all the other things being copied will stop in their tracks. But when I cancel it and wait a few for it to finally cancel, all my other folders will continue to copy to my desktop to the specified folder. I tried copying the Library folder over and over but same thing happened. It locked my system and my external up.
I thought all along that I had a bad external drive when i knew it worked well when I first got it.
So could that be a possibility that there's something in that folder that would completely halt everything when I'm copying? Because I've really never done a fresh reinstall of mac os x when I bought the machine. This backup is the factory install.
I'm just sitting here right now making sure that these other folders that are copying get done so I know that I can single out the Library folder. And so far so good with all the copying via firewire.

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Welcome to Apple Support Communities
Time Machine has to erase the external disk in order to make backups. Before setting Time Machine up, copy the files of your external disk to the hard disk of the Mac in order not to lose them, and then, set up Time Machine. The first backup will start automatically.
If you want more information about Time Machine, read the Pondini's site > http://pondini.org

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Walter Goodman wrote:
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See #C4 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
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nujac,
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Welcome to Apple Support Communities
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V.K. wrote:
... the best and the quickest way to delete it is to erase the TM hard drive....
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Time Machine errors with external hard drive

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