Unable to unlock external drive or repair (but can change password)

I have a Freecom 1TB USB 2 external drive with a single partition with Filevault 2 encryption enabled.
The Mac Air detects the drive and prompts for the password to unlock. Prior to this problem it was retrieved automatically from my Keychain (entry still there). An incorrect password immediately gives the window shake. The correct password results in either a prompt to re-enter a password after few minutes or considerably longer.
Disk Utility (run from a standard or admin account or in recovery mode) appears to Verify and Repair the drive fine, but when the partition is selected I get:
Verifying volume “1,000”
Checking storage systemChecking volume.
disk3: Scan for Volume Headers
Invalid Volume Header @ 0: incorrect block type
Invalid Volume Header @ 999709908480: incorrect block type
disk3 is not a CoreStorage volume
Error: Storage system verify or repair failed.
The Repair option is not available.
Earlier I was getting an "Unable to examine /dev/disk3: Resource busy" message on Verifying the partition.
Earlier I also got a message in the details of drive Verify or Repair in Recovery mode of "transaction group 12: cksum mismatch", though the final result of the Verify and Repair stated the drive was okay.
Oddly I seem to be able to change the password, but nothing else including switching off encryption. When the later is attempted it appears to accept the password but then stops stating there was a problem (no other details).
I have a second external drive with Filevault2 enabled and this connects fine although a password is prompted for even though I saved it to my Keychain previously.
Suggestions very welcome! Preferrably to fix or if that is not possible ways to potentially retrieve some of the data.
Drive and Partition info from Disk Utility:
Name : Freecom Mobile Drive XXS Media
          Type :           Disk
          Partition Map Scheme :           GUID Partition Table
          Disk Identifier :           disk2
          Media Name :           Freecom Mobile Drive XXS Media
          Media Type :           Generic
          Connection Bus :           USB
          USB Serial Number :           C0001E86AA51
          Device Tree :           IODeviceTree:/PCI0@0/EHC2@1A,7
          Writable :           Yes
          Ejectable :           Yes
          Location :           External
          Total Capacity :           1 TB (1,000,204,886,016 Bytes)
          Disk Number :           2
          Partition Number :           0
          S.M.A.R.T. Status :           Not Supported
Name : 1,000
          Type :           Encrypted Logical Partition
          Disk Identifier :           disk3
          Mount Point :           Not mounted
          Disk Status :           Online
          File System :           Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)
          Connection Bus :           USB
          Device Tree :           IODeviceTree:/PCI0@0/EHC2@1A,7
          Writable :           Yes
          Universal Unique Identifier :           7663BACA-6B14-3D7F-8C39-5A5319AE9F4B
          Capacity :           999.71 GB (999,709,908,992 Bytes)
          Owners Enabled :           No
          Can Turn Owners Off :           Yes
          Can Be Formatted :           Yes
          Bootable :           Yes
          Supports Journaling :           Yes
          Journaled :           No
          Disk Number :           3
          Partition Number :           0

I'll answer my own question, which may help others.
I found no solution and reformatted the drive.
Not sure if my question was poorly worded but after no response I tried one of the main paid support sites. The expert who took up my question didn't seem at first to be aware of encrypting external drives under Lion. No viable solution was found, so I gave up and reformatted the drives.
This is the third time I have had issues with the stability of OSX formatted external drives, so enough is enough. I'm sticking with FAT32 (the 4Gb limit isn't a major problem) for all my drives except my Time Machine drive. No encryption on that drive either.

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