Recovering Files..

So to make a long story short, i didn't backup my files and ended up getting the white screen of death (what i've heard it called). So i installed the OS to an external hard drive in hopes of trying to get back my pictures and other files. Right now i can see the old mac HD and am in the process of copying over files. The only problem is that once i open a folder with a file that can't be read, finder will quit and i will have to re-navigate to the files i am trying to copy over only to have it quit again and again. Is there any way i can get around this so that i can get the readable files?

Thanks

Try this instead, from the booted up OS X:
1. Open Terminal (Apps/Utility)
2. Type rsync -ave --ignore-errors /Volumes/BADDRIVE/Users/YOURUSERNAME/ /Users/YOURUSERNAMEONNEWDRIVE