Time Machine Corrupts Backup Drive ...

Well, maybe I was a little facetious with the title ....... that was just to attract you to click
I have a 500gb LaCie Desktop Hard Drive. I use FW 800 to my Mac. I use the hard drive as a TM drive only, no other data is on it.
I've had this problem several times recently.
I erase the hard drive through disk utility. It is 100% empty. I go into TM, set it as the TM Drive, and it backs up my 250gb (50gb free) internal hard drive fully.
It will TM properly about 7-10 times. After that, randomly, with nothing invoking it, i'll get a "this drive is read-only" error when TM is going about its business, and won't be able to further back up to the drive.
There is plenty of extra space to back up. Doing an information (command + i) on the hard drive, expensing the privileges drop-down and unlocking the menu does not let me change the "read-only" drop down for any of the users.
My thought was to go into Root and change it there, but I know when you start screwing around with root when something doesn't want to be done, things usually get messed up somewhere further down the line.
Right now is not a busy time for me, so the TM backup isn't crucial, but I'd like to get it up and running again ASAP.
Further Information: I am able to copy files to and from the hard drive. It is fully operational and connects to other computers as well.
Repaired / verified disk permission on both internal and external already.
Suggestions???

sounds like it could be a problem with the drive itself. you should reformat it completely using the partition tab (NOT the erase tab) in DU. then back up again and see what happens. if the problem keeps coming back after that i would suspect a faulty drive.

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