External Hard Drive containing data will not store new back ups in iMac

We have a Toshiba USB 3.0 & 2.0, 750 GB/Go External Hard Drive to store our Time Machine backups.
It contains only the Time Machine backups
Computer is an iMac6,1 with OS Snow Leopard 10.6.8.
We have been using for almost a year without problems. Now it will not back up. Message states that "files can't be copied onto the backup disk because it appears to be read only".
We are able to click the T.M. backup icon on desktop and see past backups, but just cannot backup anything more.
That would make me think the data contained is corrupted but that the hard drive is working?
Tried several recommendations from a number of apple forums, etc: turning the external drive off, and removing the USB cable, restarting mac. Also went thru several cycles in Disk Utility of trying to verify and repair the disk. The last time I tried, there were several messages, including 'DU can't repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files" , as well as "you may need to repair or reformat the disk using Disk Utility. If the disk can't be repaired, you must use a different disk for backups. Open T.M. preferences to select a different backup disk."
We have already spent many hours reading and working on this without success.
Please see attachment: The Volume Scheme is set up as 'Current' (no partitions) if that is helpful
What is the best plan of attack? Is it best to erase the existing backups and start from scratch? There is an Erase tab on the Disk Utility with several options but I don't know what to select. Thank you very much for your advice!

Upon further investigation, I've discovered a problem in the settings under the " Info" drop down.
The privileges have changed from set up!
I have looked in both the administrator and another user account. "Read & Write" privileges had been set for both of these account holders, but on Sept 1, "everyone" was added with only the "Read only" privilege in both accounts.
How could this happen? I have unlocked the padlock and used the admin. password so that I should be able to get ride of the 'everyone' setting, but the whole section has the greyed out look and is not letting me make a change??

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External Hard Drive containing data will not store new back ups in iMac

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