Problem with Bitlocked USB External HDD

I only installed Win 7 Ultimate yesterday and have been playing around investigating features. I decided to install Bitlock on an external USB drive.
I did this from within Help & Support. I've got a password and I've got a Bitlocker Drive Encryption Recovery Key. The encryption started and was immediately paused and now I can't go backwards or forwards. It wont let me do anything.
In Manage Bitlock almost everything leads to the message "The BitLocker metadata for the encrypted drive is not valid. You can attempt to repair the drive to restore access" but I can find no way of doing so.
In windows explorer I can see all the files on the drive but if I try to copy them to another drive I'm told the files cannot be found.
Obviously I need assistance.
This is my first post in this forum so if I'm in the wrong place please redirect me. Thanks.

I just did the samething. Bitlocker froze during the encryption at 90%. I found a way to get my drive back and functioning.
1.Restart windows with drive inserted.
2.Go to Manage Bitlocker
3.Turn off Automatic Unlock
4.Remove USB Drive and reinsert into slot
Now when it ask for you to unlock it DON't. Just close the password window.
Go to Start menu, Computer, Right click the drive, Chose to format the drive.
You will lose all the files on the drive but, you will get use of the drive back.
Hope it works for you.

ehw,

If all solutions fail and you find you can not use the external drive, then

Use DiskPart's CLEAN ALL command on the drive to put you back to a drive which you can format, etc, and use as normal.

CLEAN ALL is going to overwrite each and every byte on the external drive with zeroes.

WIPE A DISK CLEAN

· type DiskPart, Enter key
· type List disk, Enter key
note the numeral of the disk you want to clean
for example purposes, I’ll be using the numeral 0
· type Select disk 0, Enter key
· type Detail disk, Enter key
this info will let you know if you selected correctly
· type Clean ALL, Enter key
your entire disk is being overwritten with zeros.
This can take a considerable amount of time
· type EXIT, Enter key (only after Clean is finished)
· type EXIT, Enter key (this gets you back where you were)

Thanks guys for your suggestions. The problem occurred last year and must have been solved long ago but I've no idea how. However your suggestions have been noted for the future