Time Machine not making restorable backups

I've been having a few problems with Time Machine - this began when I un-installed Boot Camp, having reluctantly had to invest in a full Windows PC - and discovered that both the utility and recovery system were unable to repartition the Hard Drive in my MBP back to full size. Currently, OSX effectively uses 380GB of a 500GB HD (less space taken by partitioning, recovery partition, etc...) I was particularly perturbed by the error thrown up by Disk Utility in OSX recovery that it was unable to dismount the HD for repartitioning, irrelevent the size I attempted to make the new OSX partition.
Having exausted options I was aware of then, I decided the safe option was to re-install OSX to the entire HD, restoring it from the Time Machine backup, but (checking that this was feasible before starting) I found that the last restorable backup Time Machine claimed to have was from 2011, about the time I moved from my previous MBP to this one. I reformatted the drive Time Machine was installed on, and setup the programme from scratch again to try and create a useable backup, but in spite of this it refuses to work properly - Time Machine claims to have backed up, but upon trying to use the backup the restore programme states it isn't there. For reference, I'm using a 1TB, FireWire 800 external HD for the backups.
At this point, I've run out of knowledge of how OSX works, and would really like some help getting things back on an even keel. Obviously, my major concern is that I'm not getting proper backups anymore, but I would also like to recover the space on my HD that's otherwise lost. Googling the problem led me to an issue which sometimes occurs that Time Machine can get flagged to ignore system files, but checking through Terminal it appears that that isn't the case (all it's set to ignore is my Steam folder, as that's all available online anyway.) Might anyone be able to help with this?
Many thanks in advance.

This simple procedure will clear your Time Machine settings, including exclusions. The backups won't be affected. If you have a long exclusion list that can't be recreated easily, you may prefer a more complicated procedure that preserves the exclusion list. In that case, ask for instructions. Otherwise, do as follows.
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist  
Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select
Services ▹ Reveal
from the contextual menu.* A Finder window should open with a file selected. Copy the file to the Desktop. Then move it (the original, not the copy) to the Trash. You'll be prompted for your administrator password. Reboot and recreate your settings in the Time Machine preference pane. It will show that you have no backups. Don't worry; that's expected. Run a backup to test. The backup may take much longer than usual. If TM now performs as expected, delete the file you copied to the Desktop.
*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination  command-C. In the Finder, select
Go ▹ Go to Folder...
from the menu bar, paste into the box that opens (command-V). You won't see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.

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    Roglee wrote:
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