File in use error - copying from a faulty external hard drive

Hi,
I have a 750GB Western Digital external hard drive, which contains two partitions - (1) HDBACKUP - a Time Machine backup of my laptop drive, and (2) MEDIA - pictures including an Aperture library, and videos.
When I plug the drive in, only the MEDIA partition mounts. And I get an error saying Disk Utility cannot repair the drive and to backup the files as soon as I can, and reformat the drive.
When I try to copy the files onto another drive using Finder, it copies part of the file and then gives me a "File in use" error and stops. I tried copying via Terminal and its the same - this time I get a "Resource busy" error.
There are no other apps accessing the files. And this happens for every file on the drive.
So how do I go about copying the files off the drive?
I tried using DiskWarrior but it was stuck on Step 1 - Searching for Volume Information, after 3 hours.
I really need to get the Aperture Library off the drive. Any ideas on how I can copy it across?
Thanks

This did not work. I still get an error trying to repair with Disk Utility.
It gets to
Starting repair tool:
Checking file system
Checking Journaled HFS Plus volume.
Checking extents overflow file.
Checking catalog file.
Checking multi-linked files.
Checking catalog hierarchy.
Checking extended attributes file.
The volume MEDIA could not be verified completely.
Volume repair complete.
Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required.
Error: Disk Utility can’t repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.
So DiskUtility tells me to backup as many files as possible. However, when I try copying these files, I get a "File in use" error.

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