Today I found that my external hard drive isn't working any more.

The external used to be my internal, I upgraded my hard drive and got a case to use my old internal as an external. It worked pretty well for a while, but this morning I realised that my computer didn't see it was plugged in. So I unplugged it and plugged it back in, it hummed for a moment, clicked, hummed some more and clicked again, still not registering. Shit.

So I went and bought a new hard drive, but now I have the problem of, how do I get the data off my old external onto my new external? I have a lot of shit on there, lots of it I know I won't be able to get back, and lots of it I can, but it'd be a massive pain in the ass to do so, so I'd rather not have to deal with that hassle.

http://voices.yahoo.com/clicking-hard-drive-problem-one-remedy-worked-640187.html
http://harddriveclicking.net/

Chances are most likely your hd is lost though.

Might be that it's only the enclosure that's broken, the HDD might still work. Get a new enclosure and try with that (should be cheap enough to be worth the chance that it does work, even if there's a risk the HDD itself is broken).

That said, I wouldn't continue using the drive even if it does seem to work in a new enclosure.

Also, depending on the data on the drive (say, in case of irreplacable photos and important documents, but not for music, videos, or games - those can be bought again if wanted that badly), I'd send the drive in to a professional firm (such as Kroll Ontrack, others exist, but that's the first one that springs to mind) and pay the (perhaps very) steep price rather than open the drive and hope to fix it myself (a single mote of dust can make it irrepairable).

Damn. All that hard to find weird Japanese porn!

...Er, all those game installers I'll have to redownload, I mean. >.>

It almost sounds like a problem I had with my external drive a while back. It ended up my laptop was not sending enough power so I had to get a cord that let me connect to two usb ports. I got it to work before the problem started as well. if its not a laptop then that shouldnt be a problem though. My drive would spin up then stop. after a second or two it would try to spin up again. I dont really know alot about harddrives though so I dont really know if its the same problem.

I heard that. I do have a laptop, but I plugged the hard drive into my dad's desktop and got the same results, so I don't think it's a power issue. Basically all I have left is cracking it open and (carefully!) trying to get the head off the platters or punching it and hope the head is jarred loose.

It doesn't sound like software products are going to be of any use here as it's not the data on the HDD that appears to be broken, but the hardware itself. The data probably still exists on the disk, but if the motors aren't working, you'll never access it again without appropriate and expensive tools.

I must confess, I'm not too knowledgeable on hardware stuff, I have no idea what any of that means. Raw? And, while I am intrigued by it, I don't know what OSForensics is or how it will help?

I know it's more if if he can get it to work, like opening it from the closure.
Things might get messed up when he does. A disk is normally set to FAT or NTFS, raw basically is wrong and couldn't access any of my files because of it.
It basically can recover any data software wise but you will still need to get it fixed first hardware wise by cracking it open and look from there.

Ah, that actually sounds really neat.

Stick it in the freezer in a plastic bag for a few hours first. Just try to avoid generating condensation.

How many hours? And what's a good way to avoid condensation?

If you break the enclosure, you should be able to extract the drive and mount it in another computer or another enclosure. Those are just standard SATA (or PATA, if it's older) drives plugged into a controller in those enclosures.

But be prepared for it to be a total loss. A clicking drive is resetting itself in order to find readable tracks and failing to do so. If you can get it to stay up for a while, you may be able to rescue some files from it. But don't count on them being intact.

There is no use in opening up the hard drive itself in a quixotic effort to unstick the head or clean the platters, unless you have the manner of well-equipped shop, including a cleanroom and specialized tools, that can refurbish a hard disk. "No user-serviceable parts inside" should be taken seriously in this case. There is no way you want to be anywhere near a drive that is spun up up to 5400 or 7200 rpm after tampering with it, at least not without gloves, safety goggles, and a heavy jacket.

I could never figure out the best way to avoid condensation. But this method has indeed saved my data for me more than once. Sometimes, freezing can give a drive that "one more time" you need to grab your valuables before the boat sinks.

Good luck!