Well, the first problem with this is x = y then x2 = xy IFF x = y = 2 This was stated just above, but I didn't get that far when I was reading the comments...

Divide and conquer the listing of files to copy. Rather than try to do them all at one fell swoop, grab only a portion of the files at a time. Then when you get a group of files that won't copy due to the disk read error, then work at that group of files one at a time (or break the group up to a smaller group), rinse and repeat. At some point you will narrow it down to the file(s) that are causing you a problem. If the disk is failing, you may get read errors. You could try dd-rescue at that point (google for samples of the command) to image the disk to a known good disk. dd-rescue will time out before the hard drive read times out, so it can continue by skipping the block and marking it. Once the forward image is completed, it revisits the blocks that it could read, and reverse reads those blocks sector by sector. Many times it can recover 7 of the 8 sectors in a 4K block. Granted, the file is still corrupt, but you may have recovered enough of the file for parts of it to be useable.

I'd have to make one more suggestion on this particular activity, should you ever have to do it again. Do yourself a favor and image this drive using FTK Imager (free from AccessData) or dd on a Linux live disk before formatting the drive. You could also use a forensics toolset, such as Autopsy (from the sleuthkit) to possibly examine the drive and determine why the $MFT file is corrupted. As another person posted, one of the records pertaining to the $MFT itself has been corrupted and could be recovered from $MFTMirr. To do a more thorough data recovery, you could have used a Linux live distribution (either against the live disk or the image had you made one) and installed foremost. Foremost is more configurable as you can edit its config file and add in file headers that you would like to search for (PK for office documents and zip files, JFIF for jpg images, etc.). You can Google for file header magic numbers and find a pretty extensive list. Just some more food for though on the subject matter at hand. A great book explaining the NTFS file system and $MFT is Brian Carrier's File System Forensic Analysis.

I was under the impression that while speed is a factor of net neutrality, the overall idea was that all the data is treated equally and no types of data should be limited. This could in theory be done for any type of internet connection by the ISP, throttling back gaming packets in lieu of allowing people to view streaming content, etc. I don't like the idea of my ISP dictating to me how I can/should use a service that I purchase from them. When I pay for my cell phone service, they don't tell me that between the hours of 12 AM and 6 AM is the only time I can send a text message to a user on another carrier's network, but during peek time I can only send messages that are on the same network because they don't want to waste that bandwidth allowing me to converse with someone who refuses to use their network.... If the majority of my online activity is updating my Linux boxes, and that update process happens to use a protocol that is being throttled by my ISP, then what service is the ISP really providing me? Also, what happens if the ISPs deem that a type of data is not acceptable on their network and block it off? Isn't that a type of censorship? I think this will very quickly turn in to a slippery slope of where does the ISP power stop...

I think there may be some general misunderstanding about some of the inner workings of Windows 7 here. No one, and I mean no one, actually runs with Administrator privileges at all times in Windows 7. All users including Administrators run with limited privileges, and are only elevated to admin privs when necessary to perform a certain action. This is part of the UAC that is now built into Windows Vista/7. So even though your account is listed as Administrator, you are still running with limited user privileges until elevation is required. The second issue that I see is that since Windows Vista, the "My *" locations are no longer "real" folders. While there is a [root]:\Users\Documents folder, these are now libraries. You can add *ANY* location to a library and it will show up. Say you have MP3's in C:\Music and D:\Other Music, you can add both of these locations to "My Music" and you will see them there, you simply right click on the library and one of the tabs allows you to add and remove locations to the library. Also, since I think Windows XP there is never *ONLY* your account on a machine. There is ALWAYS another Administrator account on the machine that is hidden from view. This account is typically viewable when booting into safe mode, and you can also see this account when you open compmgmt.msc and view the Local Users and Groups. And if you can't access a directory, then there is some form of folder permissions in place that is preventing you from accessing it. Hopefully, some of this might clear up some issues with Windows 7.