Copying from external drives repeatedly fails

Hello!
I have repeatedly had the same problem with my computer and external drives. I have 2 hard drives (150 gig Western Digital in an external USB 2.0 enclosure, and a 160 gig Maxtor in an external Firewire and USB 2.0 enclosure) from which I often cannot copy. I've never had problems writing to the drives, but sometimes copying from them freezes.
I am a professional photographer and at any given time I'm working with far too many photos to fit on my laptop, yet I often need a particular project on my laptop so I can edit on the road. So I'm frequently moving projects to and from these drives.
This problem is not only with photos, however. When I recently reformatted my hard drive (too many old programs installed and it was faster to just start over from scratch to clean up the drive), I first made a backup onto each of these external drives. But when I went to copy my iTunes library back onto the laptop the copying would freeze. I'd relaunch Finder and start it again and it would freeze on the exact same file. I did all the disk utility first aid operations on my laptop drive and the external drives and it still happened.
If I connect the drive to my XP computer and transfer the files over my LAN then there's no problem. Makes me think the files are fine, as is the drive's integrity. Oh, and no problem copying these exact same files from one drive to the other, or from an external drive to the internal drive with the XP computer.
When this problem is happening it doesn't matter which drive I use or by which interface, it always freezes on the exact same files. But if I open that file from the external drive in the appropriate application it reads it just fine. It's only when I'm copying the file. And it doesn't matter if I copy 10 gigs at once or one file at a time, the same files freeze up. If this was just one file every 6 months I could probably deal with it, maybe even just delete it and move on (as I've done with MP3s, since I own all the CDs and can re-rip the song). But when in a set of 10 gigs even if I delete one photo it freezes up again another couple hundred megabytes later.
I'm baffled. I don't know what to do. The fact that it happens with multiple drives and multiple interfaces makes me think that it isn't a problem with the external enclosures or those drives. The only things in common are the exact files I'm transferring and the PowerBook.
I'm really frustrated because I've found a situation where my XP box performs better than my Mac, and I'm a little shaken up about it.
Any ideas?
- Jon
12 PowerBook G4 1.3GHz Mac OS X (10.3.9) 1.25 gigs, combo drive, all updates installed except Tiger.

Yes, it's from a camera.
Again, the file is not corrupt. It can be read by my Windows XP computer, opened in Photoshop, and all the data is present. And if I remove the file that isn't copying and start over it freezes on another one later. And then another. And another.
I was forced to edit this wedding on my Windows box (with an older version of Photoshop - much slower than using CS2 on my Mac) because I have been unable to copy them to my PowerBook. This is incredibly frustrating. I've run all the disk utilities on my Mac and on the external drive. Nothing has improved the situation.
This question has not been answered. Please help!

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Cant copy from External Drive get error Code 50

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Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
The purpose of this exercise is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party system modifications that load automatically at startup or login. Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Boot in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem. The instructions provided by Apple are as follows:
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Copying from external drives repeatedly fails

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