external hardrive makes clicking noise cant access it what can i do to open it and get my files back

Hi there spudlightyear,
Firstly welcome to CompuForums, I hope that you can stick around and post here rather than vanish, never to return once we've given you our advice which is a really unfair thing to do.

It seems like your hard drive has failed. All drives do it, which is why it is important to maintain backups of important files stored on more than one medium.
Can you go to Hitachi Global Storage Technologies | Support | Knowledge Base and listen to the sounds, and then tell us which one your hard drive sounds like?

You might be able to get your hard drive back with a few old technician's tricks, but otherwise you'll need to send it in for data recovery - which can be expensive.

__________________
Thanks,
Ash
CF Founder
Great Webhosting. Shared starting at $2 per month. VPSes starting at $6 per month.
www.Centicero.com
Want to get in touch? Send me a PM | Do you want to continue receiving free help? Or do you want this site to close? Become a premium member.

after listening to the sounds,

it sounds a bit like head damage 3 click click click.

Your best option would be to contact a data recovery firm, but firstly, try this:

After it makes the first click, give it a hit. Not too hard, but don't be too light either. It may unlock a stuck part of the drive, if that's the problem.

Alternatively, this might sound stupid, but put it in the freezer overnight [in a waterproof bag]. Immediately after taking it out, plug it into your computer and try to access it. Be sure to copy all of your files from it as quickly as possible.

__________________
Thanks,
Ash
CF Founder
Great Webhosting. Shared starting at $2 per month. VPSes starting at $6 per month.
www.Centicero.com
Want to get in touch? Send me a PM | Do you want to continue receiving free help? Or do you want this site to close? Become a premium member.

yeah, that could work, but you could also test your drive by going to the manufacturers website and creating a boot disk. Then testing it through that, if you know how to do that.

-Matt

__________________
There is no such thing as a bad operating system....only windows