Time Machine Permissions after OS 10.6.2 restore External HD locked

This seems to be an issue others have encountered, but I haven't found the solution (short of re-formating the external HD).
This issue is on an iMac Core 2 Duo 3 Ghz, running Snow Leopard 10.6.2. A few days ago, for some reason best known to itself, it refused to boot - grey screen with Apple and turning wheel but no more. Finally, after many attempts it booted from a Startup disk and the OS was re-installed.
After updates everything is working apart from the control panel for the Magic Mouse (re-installed the Magic Mouse software and Snow Leopard update a few times, but with no luck, but that's for another forum) and the Firewire 1 TB Time Machine external HD.
The TM external HD is there on the desktop but with a padlock. If I Command+I the disk it claims to have 2 names, my name with (Me) after it (although it's not my login name) and "everyone", both with "Custom" privileges. It will let me unlock the padlock and change the privileges but as soon as I change it to "read & write" it flips back to "Custom".
Interestingly, it won't let me add any other names and the main user (me) is greyed out. It also won't let me delete the existing users.
Disk Utility reports the TM HD Verifies that the disk is fine, but "verify disk permissions" and - significantly - "repair disk permissions" are greyed out.
If I open Terminal and type cd then drag the Time Machine Backups HD onto the window, then hit return, I see this:
cd /Volumes/Time\ Machine\ Backups
-bash: cd: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups: Permission denied
So i can't repair permissions there either.
I connected the TM HD to a MacBook Pro (same OS) and it has the same issue.
Does anybody have a solution or do I have to re-format the HD from scratch?
Thanks, Rob

Update, 22 march 2010
I've tried everything, including some suggested in this very useful section: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2057525, but with no luck.
I've had no choice but to use Disk Utility to erase the Time Machine external HD (formatted as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)").
Time Machine is now happy and is backing up.
Now I'll move on to the Bluetooth issue...

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